The Alternative Effect
by JordanBookWorm
Summary: After decades of war, Humanity purged the BETA from the Solar System. Now they set their sights on the stars.
1. Timeline

**EDIT: Here's the updated timeline that I've developed using ideas that I've come up with over the last few months. It clarifies some events, changes some so that they make more sense, and adds in new ones.**

2008:

-Since the success of Operations CHERRY BLOSSOM and SLEDGEHAMMER, 15 of the 21 Hives on Earth have been retaken and destroyed by human forces. Only the Hives in the northern Soviet Union and in Central Asia remain under BETA control.

-Western Europe has been full retaken, at the cost of tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of TSFs. Lyons, Budapest and Belarus Hives retaken.

-The Lockweed-Mardin F-35 Lightning II is given its first combat tests in real combat, during Operation Khaki, the assault on Objective 13 in India.

-Development of US Navy heavy TSF begins, as the F-24 Project. Navy planners settle on a heavily modified and adapted version of the F-22, co-developed by. This is the last purely US-developed TSF.

2009:

-December: UN, US, COSEAN, Australian and Japanese forces assist the United Front of China in taking the Dunhuang Hive.

2011:  
-May: The Soviet Union collapses due to massive civil uprising amongst the surviving civilian population in Alaska and Ireland. The uprising is supported by rebellious significantly large elements of the Soviet Army's enlisted and TSF forces. The newly founded Commonwealth of Independent States places itself under United Nations jurisdiction.

2012:

June: The final hive, Objective 15, the Krasnoyarsk Hive, is taken by the combined forces of 8 different militaries. Mankind collectively celebrates as the world's militaries begin clean-up operations around the globe.

November: Preparations begin for retaking Luna. Orbital facilities are upgraded in the build-up. The now-redundant colony ships that were built for the Alternative V plan are repurposed as orbital assault carriers. The ships are retrofitted with two dozen EML-99 railgun turrets each for fire-support.

2013:

-Research into modifying existing TSFs and combat vehicles for combat in vacuum, since most existing technology is based around working in atmosphere. Since the last engagement on the moon was in the 1970's, pre-existing equipment is long out of date, and a lengthy redevelopment is required. As such, the upgrades are limited to 3rd Generation TSFs, and modern combat vehicles. TSF Jump Unit jet engines are replaced with aerospike rocket motors and manoeuvring thrusters, and ground support vehicles such as tanks and rocket-launch systems are modified to be fully air-tight and electrically powered.

-The construction of additional XG-70 units is shelved, after the loss of the units used during Operation 21st and Operation OUKA , and the inability of existing computer systems to control the immense fluctuations in the G-Element produced gravity field.

2016:

-Orbital trials with space modified TSFs prove highly successful. Production of the F-15F _Star Eagle_, F-22B, F-24B _Lynx_, F-35D _War Lightning_, Type-14 _Yukikaze_, EF-2020 _Cyclone_, and JAS-39+ begins.

-Rebuilding of damaged areas of the world begins. It is expected to take at least 30 years to rebuild and repopulate Europe alone.

2017-2020:

-build up to Operation: MOONLIGHT continues, with hundreds of space-combat TSFs being built, and thousands of older models being modified to take part in the assault, along with tens of thousands of ground support vehicles. Over 300,000 personnel are retrained and equipped for orbital and lunar combat.

-Another 8 Assault Carriers are constructed in addition to the three existing carriers, bringing the total to 11.

2021:

-February-May: Troops, equipment, vehicles and supplies begin transferring aboard the carriers.

~Side Note – Carrier Names: UNS _Spirit of Humanity_, UNS _Gaia_, UNS _Kashgar_, USS _Enterprise_, USS _Freedom_, HMS _Illustrious_, EUS _Ignis_, CNS _Warsaw_, IJN _Tsukikaze_, HMANZS _Gallipoli_, UFS _Yǔzhòu_.

-July 23rd: The Lunar Fleet departs Earth.

-July 25th: The Lunar Fleet arrives in lunar orbit. The ships begin bombardment of the nearside hives with railguns and conventional warheads. Ground forces begin deployment.

2025:

-After four years of combat, the final hive on the moon is taken. Humanity's sights are now set on Mars, the world where the BETA were first encountered.

-Magnetic accelerator-based weaponry becomes the standard for infantry, light and armoured vehicles, and for TSFs.

2026:

-The mothballed Alcubierre Drive prototypes developed for Alternative V are brought out from storage. The drive primarily relies on G-11, which controls gravity, and G-6, which has negative mass, to generate the space-time bubble theorised by the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre. The first full scale test carries the test vessel, the _Voyager_, out to Pluto within thirty minutes.

-After further testing, the drives are mass produced and fitted to the Assault Carriers that were originally destined to carry them.

2028-2035:

-The Martian Campaign: Characterised by its heavy initial casualties, and an astoundingly high rate of attrition for equipment, the Martian campaign is the most brutal and punishing ever undertaken by human forces since Operation OUKA, and is not surpassed for over 150 years. During the Elysium campaign of 2031 alone, more than 2000 vehicles, including over 300 TSFs and TSAs, are lost in only two months of vicious fighting. Several hives are blasted to bedrock from orbit using railgun-driven thermonuclear warheads.

2034-2035:

-The Belt War: 8 TSF battalions and their attendant Orbital Marine units and Assault Carriers are tasked with wiping out BETA holdouts in the Asteroid Belt. Several Hives are cleared on Ceres, Vesta and Pallas, while a few smaller Hives on lesser rocks are simply atomised. Casualties are heavy, and many troopers are lost to the void. Bodies continue to be found for the next hundred years.

2035:

-The Jovian Moons Campaign.

2037:

-The Europa Incident: The hundred and fifteen strong 31st Amphibious Assault Battalion _Trident_ is killed to the last as their A-14 Morgen's hold the line against massive hordes of adapted BETA that emerge from hives in the submarine bedrock of the ice moon. Although the pilots of _Trident_ Battalion die one by one, alone in the dark, not a single BETA organism reaches the surface. Less than a quarter of wrecks are able to be recovered from the Europan world-ocean.

2040:

-After almost 70 years of fighting, the Solar System is finally cleansed of BETA.

2046:

-The first fusion power-plant is constructed. After some significant hiccups, the installation proves a great success.

2050:

-Colonies set up on Luna and Mars, using the structurally intact Hives as the basis for new underground cities. Space travel becomes commonplace.

2054:

-small scale fusion generators are developed, alongside fusion-powered engines for vehicles, such as aircraft and TSFs.

2061:

-a new form of TSF is developed as a significantly smaller and cheaper vehicle for infantry support and urban combat. Colloquially known as the Patrol Fighter, Recon Fighter or Utility Fighter ("Ute"), the first microTSF, the F-42 Phoenix, enters service in the militaries of several nations.

2063:

-July: The UN assimilates the world governments into a single, unified body. There is some conflict, but most of the major powers accept the decision to unify.

2060's:

-the human population finally begins to approach pre-BETA levels.

-Because the threat of Laser-class BETA has been passed for over 20 years in the Sol System, fighter and tactical strike aircraft are gradually reintroduced into world militaries. Many design philosophies from TSFs are incorporated, since fighter design has been stagnant since 1967, with the original F-4 Phantom, prior to it being redeveloped as a TSF. The UN Air Force is established.

-The UN Navy Fleet is increased in size and diversity, with newer classes comparable to old wet Navy ship types introduced into the Fleet. Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships enter production alongside Carriers, which once again carry fighters and strike aircraft.

-FTL equipped ships launch to colonise nearby systems. Barnard II, later named Haven, is among the first colonised, since it was known to be habitable back in the 20th century. Also discovered are several worlds in the process of being devoured by the BETA. The ones that are nowhere near habitable are scoured with fusion bombs, while habitable ones are invaded, the Hives purged, and the planets fortified. Several of the worlds are found to have traces of now-extinct civilisations, most of which are found on BETA devoured worlds. However, some are found to have been obliterated by what is later thought to have been orbital bombardment.

-Several planets are found to have still surviving non-human populations. However, only the [Fythern] of Ishtar, the [Voron] of Eridanos, and the [Sabaka] of Lupus have the numbers to constitute viable populations, due to their high reproductive rates. The fates of the Vulcanian [Ekara], Abydonian [Tanin] and Tribunite [Ari] are used to quell civil unrest regarding the existence of alien races that are not BETA strains.

2075:

-The remains of what appear to be alien buildings are discovered on Mars. Buried amongst the rubble, the wreckage of several ships is discovered. The scientific community and the major military powers are extremely suspicious of the ruins. Traces of an unidentified substance are found on what are believed to be the drive cores of the ships. Further testing reveals that the substance alters the mass of objects by way of positive and negative electrical charges, similar to certain strains of G-Elements. The substance is later named "Element Zero" -"Eezo" for short- due to it's curious atomic properties. The samples are sealed away, since not enough is found to be of any practical use.

2077:

-Engineers and scientists working on military stealth technology make a significant breakthrough. They develop an optical cloak system that renders the user almost completely invisible to the eye, as well as most infrared wavelengths. Testing using preserved Laser-class samples prove that the cloak works against them. Unfortunately, the Camouflage Field is found to draw a ridiculous amount of energy for its operation, and that they are extremely temperamental. Testing continues.

2079:

-A survey ship investigating Pluto accidentally activates an alien artefact buried beneath the surface of Charon. The artefact thaws, melting a significant portion of Charon, reducing the size of the moon by almost 15 percent and briefly giving it an atmosphere.

-A single ship, the UNS _Yukon_, captained by Commander Jon Grissom, approaches the artefact, while being observed by a dozen other ships. There is a flash of light, and the Yukon disappears. It reappears several hours later, where it finds the UN Fleet guarding the device about to obliterate it with G-bombs. The crisis is averted, with Commander Grissom barely managing to talk down the commander of the UN fleet.

-Survey data from the _Yukon _reveals that the ship's destination was in the Arcturus System, 36 light years away.

2080:

-further surveys of Arcturus reveal the existence of another 5 Relays in the system. Exploration of the Relay network begins by the UN. Large amounts of Element Zero are also discovered on the third planet of the system, leading to questions from the scientific community concerning whether or not it is naturally occurring. Eezo experiments become somewhat rampant. However, very few practical implementations become apparent for many years.

-Construction of Arcturus Station and Eunomia Fleet Base begins.

-The first self-aware AI, named Eve, comes online. Once she begins to ask "The Question", her creators opt to leave her to find an answer for herself.

2082:

-The first TSF built around an Electronic Camouflage Field (ECF), the F-45 _Spectre_, enters service, supplanting its short-lived predecessor, the F-44 Raven. The success of the system leads it to being adapted for every land and aerospace vehicle larger than an AFV.

2083:

-Eve declares to her creators that she believes herself to be alive. More AI's are created.

-The Synthetic Rights Laws are passed, granting AI's the same rights as humans.

2085-2120:

-Local exploration slows as exploration and colonisation efforts focus towards the mapping of the Relay Network, although ships are sent to continue mapping nearby systems.

2121:

-Eden Prime in the Utopia System is settled.

2128:

-Remnant in the Vale System is settled.

2130:

-Yozora in the Night's Edge System is settled.

2132:

-Terra Nova in the Asgard System is settled.

-Corvus in the Talon System is settled.

2130's:

-Fleet Reorgaisation: The 7th through 14th Fleets are reassigned to the new Colonies established in the Relay network. While they are still officially based and administered in their home systems, the Fleets former duties are now covered by the 4th, 5th and 6th Fleets.

2157:

-A BETA infestation is discovered on a habitable world that is named Shanxi, which reveals the extent of the BETA infestation, since Shanxi is over 50 light years and three Relay jumps from Earth. The infestation is also new; with only three hives constructed. Two carriers, a cruiser squadron and a frigate/destroyer flotilla are assigned to assist in taking the hives and securing the planet for possible colonisation.

-Anomalous signals detected from the Shanxi Theta Relay. A ship is sent to investigate, but nothing is found.


	2. The Burning of Shanxi

**Hey guys, as promised, here's the first chapter of the story. Now, to answer some of the reviews.**

**-Kinunatzs: Exoskeletons and Hardimans will make an appearance. Those are infantry use equipment, and we haven't exactly seen any infantry yet...as Eezo tech, I've opted not to give humans that. There will be some stuff based on G-Elements, but thats all.**

**-Robo Reader 21: The timeline is because there is a very long span between the events of Alternative and Mass Effect. And it does reduce the amount of exposition I need to explain things that happened in the past, like how the Prothean Archives on Mars are ruins, or why Humanity doesn't use Eezo, etc. As for the BETA, _I'M GIVING THEM THE STUPID STICK!_ Humans haven't explored very far, so we don't actually know how far the BETA are really spread. Despite how close together Earth might look to Citadel Space, really its a distance of thousands of light years. There are millions of stars in that space.**

**-Jouaint: Thanks**

**-Mr. Guest appearance: I have fixed the issue of the ruins in the timeline.**

**-ferduran: if you don't know the background of Muv-Luv (maybe I should do a codex entry on it), but G-Elements are anything but man-made. They are obtained from the Reactors inside BETA Hives.**

* * *

23rd April, 2157

General Fred Williams stood on the observation deck of the UNS _Athens_, watching the ships TSFs and strike fighters deploy to the surface as the assaults vanguard.

The deck shuddered as the _Athens'_ guns began bombarding the hive.

_I wonder what the casualty reports will be like this time,_ thought Williams. Even with the significant advancements in technology and hive-assault tactics over the last century, most assault forces took at least forty percent casualties, wounded or dead. Ten percent would be lost during the initial drop, and the rest inside the chaos of the hive interior. But humanity had learnt a lot of lessons from the disasters of early hive intrusions, and from the near failure of Operation OUKA, over a century and a half ago, which had resulted in over 99 percent casualties in the Objective 01 assault force.

_Let's try to keep them low._ He signalled the CIC, "This is the General. Maintain the bombardment until the Helljumpers are about to hit. Strike fighters are free to engage at their discretion. Just tell them to watch for laser fire. I want the 81st and 105nd Light Assault Battalions, along with the 43rd and 258th Light Armoured to drop in to support the vanguard. But I want a few squadrons of Utes held in reserve to act as fast response."

_This is going to be a long day._

* * *

"_All drop-shell detonations confirmed. Good luck, Helljumpers."_

2nd Lieutenant Mari Bridges of the United Nations Marine Corps 54th Orbital Diver Battalion_ Helljumpers_ let out a nervous chuckle as the lead lined drop-shell that had encased her F-62 Comet Tactical Surface Fighter broke apart around her, exposing her fighter to the atmosphere and the possibility of Laser-fire. _This is going to be hell._ _I would have preferred my first drop to be against a regular swarm, not a damned _Hive_. Ah well, shikata ga nai._

"Oi, Bridges, you awake in there?" said a voice over the squad-net.

The voice belonged to one 1st Lieutenant Sasha Ivanov_a. "_Remember, kid, cloak as soon as you can. That'll keep you alive."

"_Hai_, El-Tee."

"Good. Now, I'd better see you on the ground."

Mari nodded, before cutting the link. Then she put her Comet into a barely controlled spin, to avoid possible laser hits.

And sure enough, a beam burned through the extremities of the heavy metal cloud that had previously been her shell. _That was a close one._ _I thought that they weren't supposed to miss._

As her Comet began to approach its target altitude, Mari triggered her ECF, turning her TSF into a shimmering heat-blur. She would still be visible to the Laser-class on the ground, but they would be less likely to target her. And then her Jump-units dialled up to full thrust, the deceleration rate so high that Mari could feel her neural link threatening to disconnect.

Captain Smith's face appeared in the squad-net. "Bridges, Feng, you're coming in too fast!"

Mari squeezed out a nod against the g-forces, as she rode her Comet down. And then her velocity hit the maximum safe level, and her turbines automatically dialled down, bringing the fighter to a relatively gentle touchdown, which was if landing on top of a Tank-class and crushing it under her feet could be considered gentle. Gentle probably wasn't the right word. The phrase "Like a shooting star" probably fit the landing better.

Mari took a moment to shake off the shock of the impact, before taking a look around.

And found herself surrounded by Tanks. _Fuck._

She fumbled briefly, trying to bring her AMWS-31B Support Assault Cannon into firing position. While she was trying to get herself into the fight, several Tanks took the opportunity to leap onto her exposed Comet.

Only to be shredded by a burst of 20mm hypersonic cannon fire.

"Dammit, kid, I told you to stay alive."It was 1st Lt Ivanova. Looking in Ivanova's direction, Mari could pick out the computer generated outlines marking the rest of the cloaked Helljumpers' 3rd Squadron. Except for 2nd Lt Feng, whose signal was conspicuously absent.

"Sorry Sasha," said Mari apologetically. She finally had her cannon up and slamming magnetically accelerated high explosive rounds into the horde of Tanks approaching their position.

After about thirty seconds of firing, the seven TSFs had cleared the area of BETA, giving Mari the opportunity to take a good look at their surroundings. They seemed to be in a clearing, with a large forest of tree-analogues covering the area to the south and west, steep cliffs to the north, and, according to the data-feed from the _Athens _and the _Atlantis_, about six kilometres from the Hive entrance that had been assigned to their squadron. Apparently, the mechanised infantry, assault tanks and Utes from the 81st and 43rd were already en-route from their landing zones, and would arrive at the Hive within the hour, assuming they weren't devoured first. Despite all the advances to battle tank design over the last century and a half, the only advantages they had in combat were the ability to outrun Tank-classes and Destroyers, and guns and targeting systems capable of kill said Tanks while outrunning them.

Captain Morgan Smith began dishing out orders, "Alright, Marines, we're moving out. Bridges, Ivanova, I want you two cloaked and on top of that cliff. Pick off any Laser-class that you see, and cover us while we approach the Hive. Once we're in, you two will link up with the elements of the 81st and 43rd Light Battalions and support their advance towards the Hive. Move out. Now, everyone else, with me!"

"_OORAH!"_

* * *

"Sir, we will be exiting the Relay shortly."

"Thank you, Ensign," replied Captain Decius Fortix. The captain of the Turian Hierarchy cruiser _Indomitable_ took a moment to review his orders from the Citadel Fleet. _Reconnoitre the system on the other side of Relay 314 for possible threats to the Citadel. Survey the system for possible colonisation efforts and resources. Protect the science team_.

All fairly routine, especially since the Council had loosened the ban on Relay activation. The law had been revised so that inactive relays could be activated, with permission from the Council and an escort from the Citadel Fleet. _Get in; spend a few hours looking around, maybe a few hours poking around if there were any planets of interest, leave._

"Sir, we are clear of the Relay, drifting at eight kilometres. Radar and Ladar are clear. No contacts."

"Good. Tactical, I want us off the grid. Activate the emission shrouds and radar absorbers."

Most military ships these days had a propensity towards remaining hidden, just in case someone decided to investigate.

"We're invisible, sir."

"Very good, men," replied Fortix, although he knew it was a lie. Anyone within range with good enough eyes could pick out the white and red painted warship, just by looking out a view-port.

"Alright, sensory, begin the survey. We've all been issued leave for tomorrow by Command, and I'm sure you all don't want to miss that." There was a round of "Yes sir's" from the crew.

The crew of the _Indomitable_ never detected the array of small monitoring satellites orbiting the Relay, which lost sight of them the moment their radar and thermal signatures disappeared.

* * *

_Aboard the Athens_,_ several minutes later._

"General," the young lieutenant at the sensory console spoke up, "Probes 12 through 15 detected an anomaly near the Theta relay. Something popped up on their sensors, but disappeared shortly after."

Williams pulled up the data feed on the holo-tank. _Athens' AI, _Deja, popped up next to it.

"General, I believe it may have been a ship. Before the anomaly vanished, one of the probes took this image." An image of a pinkish blur appeared on the display. "I believe this is the ship."

"Alright, Deja, I'll trust your judgement on this. Put the fleet on alert, but only the ships command staff and AI's. Have the _Canberra _investigate the relay, see if this thing is still in the area."

"Yes, General."

_I have enough on my plate without having to deal with a possible first contact. Hell, we don't even _have_ first contact protocols anymore. Not since we found the BETA outside Sol._

* * *

_The Indomitable._

"Would you look at that, sir," said Ensign Victus, the sensory officer. "Looks like we might have ourselves a garden world. Spectral analysis of atmosphere shows 75 percent nitrogen, 22 percent oxygen, and 3 percent a mix of harmless inert gases. Surface temperature a few degrees below Palaven average. Seems like we hit the jackpot."

"Alright, the yolk-heads will want more details than that. Get us some more data on the planet."

Victus made some tweaks to the sensor systems, expanding the data collection range. He waited a few minutes for the readings to be received by the sensors and the data processed by the ship's VI. _Hmm...Three continents, surface is 80 percent water, green and red colouration possibly indicative of chlorophyll or similar analogues in the flora, and what is that? Huh? That can't be right!_

"General!" Victus exclaimed. "The sensors are detecting ships in orbit of the planet. "

"Spirits. They can't have come through 314, we just activated that. Which means they must be from outside Citadel space. We may be looking at a possible first contact. There was a first contact specialist aboard, correct?"

"There is, sir," said one of the bridge technicians, "an Asari named Arys Daela."

"Good. Helm, quietly bring us closer to the planet. I want to get a closer look at them before we make contact."

"Yes, sir."

_Spirits, looks like we may not be getting that leave after all._

* * *

_UNS Atlantis, 81__st__ Light Assault Battalion, C Company launch bay._

"Shit, Sarge, why are we the ones on standby?" asked a frustrated Corporal James Dunn. "The rest of the battalion is on the ground, fighting for their lives, and we're stuck up here!" His colour turned orange tinged red.

"You dumbass, if you'd paid attention during the briefing you'd know that us and the rest of C and E Companies are on Rapid Reaction duty," replied a very annoyed Gunnery Sergeant Natassa Alenko. Red-grey.

"I know that Sarge, I mean, 'Why us?' specifically?" Blue-grey.

Alenko sighed, "As far as I can tell, they picked out of a helmet. I know son, I want to be down there just as much as the next Marine. But we have orders." Blue-red.

Private First Class Shizuka Yoruda quietly listened in on the conversation taking place below as she sat in the cockpit of her F-61A Phoenix II micro-TSF. She was having issues with the fighters targeting matrix, which stubbornly refused to sync properly with her AWS-38 20mm cannon. The guns were fresh from the repair shop, after a run-in with a construction crane during a patrol at Arcturus Station. She was having Ariel, the C Company AI, help her out, since she couldn't interpret the data streams that connected the weapon system to the targeting computer of the Phoenix II. She absently twirled the silver streak in her otherwise youthfully brown hair.

"Zuka", said Ariel, using Shizuka's nickname amongst the squad, "I believe you need to purge your computers targeting data for this gun, and recalibrate the entire system again. Hard reset the gun first, and then I will do the rest."

"_Doumo,_ Ariel," Shizuka replied as she climbed out of the cockpit to fiddle with the cannon.

* * *

_Indomitable_

"Sir, we've reached the designate orbital point, and we are trailing 20,000 kilometres aft of the unidentified ships. Beginning optical observation….now."

"Thank you Ensign," replied Fortix.

It was several agonising minutes before Victus signalled the Captain that the observations were complete.

"So what are we dealing with?"

"None of the ships match any known patterns or makes in the database, sir. Some of them are even bigger than our dreadnoughts. And none of the radiation associate with Eezo use either. It looks like we might actually be dealing with a new species."

"No eezo on ships that size? Hmm, the Salarian engineers aboard should probably take a look at that later."

"Also the ships appear to be….firing."

"At each other? Please tell me we haven't stepped right into a war."

Victus shook his head. "No sir, they appear to be firing at the something on the surface."

Fortix clicked his mandibles. "If they weren't a new species, I'd write this up as a violation of Citadel Laws and call the fleet in on them." He paused. "Can we see what they're firing at?"

"No sir, the cloud cover is too thick from this angle, and radar is ineffective at this range. And if we move any closer, we risk being detected."

"Alright, Tactical, send in the Lieutenant Vakarian's security team and Dr Daela in one of the stealth shuttles."

The officer in question nodded.

* * *

_AI Deja, Athens_

Deja watched through the optical sensors as the alien ship launched its shuttle. She had picked it up several minutes ago when it popped out of its version of FTL and immediately masked its emissions. But she had already spotted it with the dozens of cameras mounted on the exterior of the ship, as had the AI's of the other ships in the fleet. They had already informed General Williams of the discovery, and were patiently awaiting his decision. It was took all of fifteen seconds for the General to make up his mind.

"Deja, are you and the other AI's tracking the shuttle?"

"Yes, General. It appears to be approaching Hive 02, most likely to observe the target of our orbital bombardment. The cloud cover approaching from the west appears to be blocking their optical sensors."

"Hmm…alright, have the 81st's Rapid Reaction units on standby in case something happens to these aliens. We haven't cleared out all the Laser-class yet, so they might need assistance. And it might help to make a good impression on these aliens, especially given that they have technology."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

_Shuttle 12, above unidentified planet._

Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian watched out the right-side viewport of the stealth shuttle as the landscape flashed past. There wasn't much to see except enormous forests. There was so little to see that Sorus was stuck thinking about what there was to bombard. _Trees, trees, oh look, more trees, hmm that's a funny looking rock. Why is it green?_

And then a laser beam took out the shuttle's right wing.

Vakarian made sure he was locked in tight as the shuttle began is death spiral towards the ground, as the pilot fought the controls in vain.

_Well, shit. What a bad way to start a mission. Looks like that leave is going to have to wait a while. I hope Kyria and the kids are okay with it, _thought Vakarian, as the shuttle slammed into the ground.

* * *

_Athens, CIC._

"General, the alien shuttle has been shot down," said Deja, in her ever calm voice.

"Well, time to earn humanity some good points in these aliens books. Drop the Phoenixes."

"Yes General."

* * *

_A few minutes later_

Vakarian carried the wounded Asari contact expert over his shoulder, running as fast as he could. Those damned red..._monsters_ had eaten two of his men when they'd stepped forwards to greet the aliens in the place of the injured doctor, and then they'd torn the downed shuttle apart and eaten it, both parts and all. And then they'd found that their Vindicator Rifles were next to useless against them.

And now Vakarian, along with the two surviving members of his security team were running for their lives across the forest floor, praying to the Spirits that the trees would slow the monsters down. It was not until they reached the clearing that Vakarian realised how utterly screwed they were. The six legged monsters were approaching from almost every direction, and they were moving _fast._

Vakarian lowered the doctor to the ground and shouldered his Vindicator. Troopers Karick and Piran did the same. _We aren't going down without a fight._

* * *

_Airspace near Hive 02._

The Marines of C and E Companies, 81st Light Armoured Battalion, United Nations Marine Corps, fell towards the ground through an enormous hail of orbitally fired anti-laser shells and clouds of anti-laser smoke, aiming for the clearing that the aliens had been tracked to. Unfortunately, there was an entire regiment of Tanks converging on that clearing, so they'd be extracting the survivors in a D-22 Sabretooth dropship.

Shizuka switched her tactical feed off and double checked her targeting system. Ariel had ironed out all the bugs, but she wanted to be sure.

As the TSFs reached the maximum stealth altitude, the fusion engines powering their Jump Units dialled up, just enough to reach the ground alive, but not enough to break the ECF.

Then Shizuka's Phoenix approached the ground. And for someone whose name meant "quiet", she was about to make a very loud entrance.

* * *

Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian levelled his rifle at the first of the red monsters in sight, which was just outside the 200 metre mark but closing fast. And then he heard it.

It was like a roar that he had never heard before, like some kind of mythical beast. He looked up, searching for the source of the noise, before he realised that it was all around him. And then there was a series of metallic thumps, but there was nothing in sight, only the hoard of monsters emerging from the forest.

Then he heard a voice shout, in a language he had never heard before.

"_Marines. OPEN FIRE!"_

And then all around him were dozens of grey and green titans, silver wings spreading from their backs, the enormous guns in their metal hands jackhammering away at the horde.

Sorus was so entranced by the iron angels that he barely even registered being dragged along with Karick, Piram and Daela up the ramp of the waiting dropship.

* * *

**_Codex – Tactical Surface Fighters:_**

_When the BETA first arrived on Earth, Humanity's main advantage was the gratuitous application of airborne firepower. This changed once the first Laser-class emerged from the Kashgar Hive. Not long after, the US Military unveiled its latest weapon, the F-4 Phantom Tactical Surface Fighter. For the next 70 years of warfare, the TSF remained the primary weapon of Humanity in the fight against the BETA._

_Over the course of the war, and afterwards, numerous changes occurred in TSF design and combat doctrine:_

_Initially, TSFs were used as walking tanks, piloted by fighter pilots. Because of this, casualty rates during early engagements resulted in massacres, and lead to the coining of the infamous "8 minutes of death." Afterwards, TSFs shifted towards higher mobility designs over heavy armour, further emphasised by the "Hi-Lo Mix" approach to combat._

_At present, there are five classes of TSF:_

_-The Heavy (Hi) TSF, for long endurance, long range combat._

_-The Light (Lo) TSF, cheaper, easier to produce fighters with shorter endurance but similar combat performance._

_-The "Medium" TSF, which are rarely seen now, but were attempts to merge the two design philosophies of Hi-Lo TSFs. The last Medium TSF used in UN Military service was the F-44 Raven, which was retired in 2089 after only 8 years in service._

_-The micro-TSF (also known as Patrol/Recon Fighters, Utes and Phoenixes), were a very successful attempt at multipurpose TSFs. They are primarily aimed at infantry support, urban combat and base defence, but are also issued to reconnaissance units. Range in size from 9 to 13 metres tall._

_-The Tactical Surface Attacker, a variation on TSF design revisiting the original F-4 Phantom combat doctrine. TSAs rely on heavy armour and their godly amounts of firepower, but are known for their incredibly poor mobility._

_The TSFs currently in UN Marine Corps and Navy service are the F-60 Yukikaze II (Hi), F-62 Comet (Lo), F-61 Phoenix II (micro) and A-25 Raider III. The UN Army, which focuses primarily on the defence of already colonised worlds, is equipped with the older F-57 Nightmare (Hi), F-59 Gryphon (Lo), F-55 Wedgetail (micro) and A-23 Vigilante II. The United Nations, after Unification, adopted a fighter numbering system based on the old United States system, continuing on after the F-42 Phoenix, the original micro-TSF. However, there are several differences in this system. First, "F-"designations are only assigned after a TSF has been adopted for service. Second, no numbers are skipped, for whatever reason, to avoid situations similar to the ridiculous number of unassigned designations between the F-24 Hellcat and the YF-32 Erne and F-35 Lightning II. Third, designations are assigned chronologically, so there are none that go backwards through the system, such as the F-24 Hellcat, which was introduced 2 years after the F-35 Lightning II._

**_Codex – The United Nations:_**

_The United Nations is the governing body of Humanity, having superseded the old national governments in 2077. While national governments still have nominal control over their countries and people, the UN General Assembly has the final say in all non-domestic matters._

_The UN governs by way of representative democracy, with each nation or bloc electing their officials to represent them in the General Assembly._

_Colonies are also allowed to join the General Assembly, once they reach a certain stage of development._

_Due to nations aggregating and unifying prior to Unification, the General Assembly is only made up of approximately 30 states. The aggregate superstates are the North American Union, the European Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the African Union, the United States of Japan and Korea, the United Republic of China, the Commonwealth of Australasia, the Organisation of South East Asian Nations (OSEAN), the Saharan Republic, and the South American Coalition. Other prominent nations include the Brazilian Empire, the Lunar Republic, the Mars Confederated States, the Outer Planets Union, and Haven._

_The United Nations Military is made up of:_

_-UN Army: The successor to the original UN Army from the BETA Wars, the UN Army primarily defends Earth and the colonies, acting mostly like a reserve force to be called up in times of emergency or war._

_-UN Aerospace Force: Similar to the UN Army, the UNAF militarily commands the airspace of all colonies up to high orbit. It primarily uses Strike Fighter and bomber aircraft, but also has ground vehicles and TSFs._

_-UN Navy: The long-arm of humanity out into the stars. The Navy operates the all the warships created by Humanity._

_-UN Marine Corps: Descended from the various military marine forces of the assimilated nations within the UN, including the US Marines, British Royal Marines, the Spanish, French and Italian Marines, the Imperial Japanese Naval Infantry and the ANZAC Marines. The primary military ground force of Humanity out amongst the stars._

_Due to the possible threat of further BETA incursions in the Sol System, and out in the colonies, especially ones that were once home to the BETA, the UN military enforces military training as part of the educational curriculum. Students are given thorough infantry training, along with rudimentary armoured vehicle or TSF training. Students may opt to continue their training once complete, and those that do may join the UN military immediately with minimal time in basic training._


	3. Aliens

**24th April, 2157.**

"_Captain, telemetry from the shuttle cut off. It appears to have been shot down."_

_Fortix bottled up his building rage, before coming to a decision more logical than the one that first came to mind._

"_If those aliens are hostile, we don't have enough firepower to take them on. Helm, jump us back to the Relay."_

"_Yes sir."_

* * *

The shock had worn off for Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian after a few minutes of being with these "humans". Sure they looked ridiculously like asari, but most of the sentient species in the known galaxy followed the same two-armed, bipedal form with the main sensory organs as part of a defined head. Thinking about it, they also looked quite a bit like quarians, but with the more defined facial features of asari. But mostly like the asari, but with the head fur that was common to quarians instead of the tentacle-like crests protruding from the back of asari craniums.

It hadn't taken long to determine how they saw him. They were being extremely cautious, and they had taken everything except his armour and omni-tool. Not to mention the armed guards just about everywhere he looked. Aside from his covert recordings, he'd had to use the device to scan the food they'd tried to feed him. Turned out they were levo-amino. Sorus had had to use the omni-tool to project protein strands to explain how their food might kill him. They got the message eventually. Especially after he had put aside his pride and pretended to fall down dead after pointing at the plate. The humans allowed him to eat some of this own rations instead. And they'd let him keep the omni-tool, since they'd realised that they might be able to communicate through it.

As such, the omni-tool was also analysing the words that echoed around him, trying to contextualise the sounds and alien words to put together some kind of translation system. It was very slow progress. Most of the words he'd been able to get had been related to his weapons and armour. They'd been curious about the barriers, but seemed to have given up until they had some way to translate and explain the inner workings.

After a while they'd moved him into a room with troopers Karick and Piran, while they were presumably still observing Doctor Daela. They'd been separated from her since they'd been brought aboard, and she'd still been unconscious from the crash._ The resemblance must be really creeping them out, huh. Or maybe it's easier for them to try and speak to someone who looks like them, and can probably eat their food._

So he sat, idly chatting with Karick and Piran about their situation, which wasn't exactly welcoming but wasn't really hostile either. They were also putting together a report of everything they knew, so they had something they could transmit back to the Hierarchy and the Council if they eventually got the chance. _Maybe those humans can figure out a translation from all this._

The hatch swung open slowly. And then the human that Vakarian had come to know as _Williams_ walked through the door. Followed by what he assumed was a human female, judging by her obvious similarities to asari and female quarians. It was hard to tell, since they all looked the same in their identical armour plating and the bulky exoskeletons that they wore over them. But the females seemed to have higher pitched voices, so that was a start.

Vakarian stood to greet the humans. Williams nodded his curiously hairless head before speaking, "_Sorusvakarian."_

Williams gestured to the female, _"Shepard."_ The female waved her hand. _Some kind of greeting?_ Williams sat down, followed by _Shepard_. Vakarian followed suit.

And then Sorus felt a kind of pressure in the back of his head, like someone was poking around in his mind. Across from him, Shepard had her eyes closed.

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Hannah Shepard stilled as she peered into the aliens mind. It was so different to a human mind. Rather than a forest of branching thought, it was more like a neural city. Thoughts, memories, ideas; arranged haphazardly, but with a certain discipline to their organisation. Much different from what the minds of BETA Reactors were described as in reports; those were supposedly like a black hole of mind, completely singular in purpose.

She sifted through the memories, searching for the ones that the _turian_ associated with language. A great many of them were linked to memories of teaching the language to what appeared to be a turian infant. A sound-word-memory appeared in Shepard's mind. _Garrus._ _They're just like us, aren't they?_ She smiled inside, and added a few memories of her own little girl, Theresa Jade, to the turians memories. _There's nothing classified about the family trip to Chiron, is there?_

Shepard felt the turian tense up, feeling red and yellow, as if he knew what was happening. Shepard paused, before querying the turians memories for the ones linked to the reaction. It was something to do with that blue human looking alien that was still unconscious in the medical bay. Something to inquire about later.

Shepard finished absorbing the memories and knowledge relating to the turians language, before closing the hatch into his mind. The turians emotions returned to a calm shade of blue. She stood up, saluted the General, and left the compartment, before returning to her cabin to process the information and attempt to get a handle on the turian language. With luck, she would be able to upload some of the data into her neural net so that the fleet AI's could help her build up a translation matrix similar to the ones that had been used by the UN military since the BETA Wars back on Earth.

* * *

Sorus felt the weight in his mind relax, and he let out a sigh of relief, which was perforated by the sheer volume of questions that were beginning to overflow out of his brain. _How were these humans capable of mind-melding? We didn't detect any Element Zero on their ships, so biotics is out of the question._

He looked questioningly at Williams, whose only response was to stand up, tilt his head and step out of the room. A puzzled Trooper Karick walked up to him.

"Are you alright, sir? And what was that? They just sat there for a minute, and then left. Wasn't much of an interrogation."

"I think that female mind-melded with me."

"How is that possible? Only the asari are known to be capable of mind-melds," exclaimed Piran, joining the conversation.

"It's a big galaxy, Piran."

Karick spoke up. "Sir, do you know what she took? The _hooman _might have taken information relating to the Hierarchy. Possibly for an invasion!"

"Calm down, Karick!"

"But Sir-"

Vakarian cut her off, "As far as I can tell they're treating us as guests. We haven't been tortured, they have somewhat unsuccessfully tried to feed us their food, and let us not forget that they saved us down on that planet."

"They could have been the ones who shot us down! This could be the Rachni Wars all over again!"

"Karick, if you do not calm down, I will write you up for insubordination when we return to the _Indomitable._ I understand how you feel trooper, but they did save us nonetheless, and you saw what those things down there did to Vierius and Rakal. I want to go home just as much as you do; I want to see my mate and my son again." The thought of little Garrus triggered something in Sorus' mind.

_A cool breeze blows silver and brown hair across her face. Little Terry running ahead, her dark red and silver hair trailing behind her. _

"_Terry, don't go too far ahead."_

"_Okay Mama," replies the little girl, clearly not listening._

_The breeze picks up, blowing the hat off of her head. She gazes upwards, reaching to grab it. She catches a glimpse of the twin stars staring down from the pale blue sky._

"Sir? Sir, are you okay?" It was Piran.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. You stopped speaking and your eyes went kinda blank. After effect of their version of the mind-meld? I've heard that asari mind-melds leave you a bit stunned afterwards."

"I don't think so. I believe I just saw that human, Shepard's memories. It was of a human child. Probably hers. I think she was trying to communicate that we're alike, but wasn't able to say it because of the language barrier."

"I see, sir."

"Good. Now get some rest Trooper, we're going to have a lot to report when we get back to the Hierarchy."

* * *

_UNS Athens, CIC._

"General," vocalised Deja, "The _Tobruk, Hastings _and_ Paris _have returned from Earth. Captain Sterne reports that they are carrying one Professor Anita Goyle. Additionally, further orders have arrived from HIGHCOM via the QEC. They are marked 'For Your Eyes Only.' I will transmit them to you when you are ready."

"Go."

"Yes, sir."

Williams closed his eyes and allowed the data-file to open up in his neural net.

_Lieutenant General Frederic Williams, UNMC._

_In light of possible first contact – _

Williams skimmed through the military-political chaff to find the actual orders.

– _the United Nations has appointed Professor Goyle as the civilian representative to the Turians, while you have been selected as the military representative in recognition of your ability to keep a level head during your encounter with the alien ship. –_

–_once your tech teams have completed their translation program, you are to negotiate with the turians currently in your care, along with the unidentified humanoid alien once it regains consciousness. –_

–_additional elements from the 3__rd__ and 6__th__ Fleets led by Group-Captain John Shepard will be joining your Expeditionary Fleet within the next two days. –_

_Good Luck._

_Signed, General Jameson T. Kirke, UNMC._

Williams erased the orders from his neural net. "Deja, what is the progress of the translation program?"

"Almost complete, General. It should only be a few more hours to complete the bug-checks. The turian language is remarkable similar in structure to Latin."

"I see. Inform Colonel Telfair that I won't be joining them down at the ground base. I won't have time with all of this."

"Yes, General."

* * *

_Indomitable, near Relay 314._

Captain Fortix stood on the _Indomitable'_s observation deck watching the assembling fleet. He'd opted to report the incident directly to the Hierarchy command, rather than informing the council. It was his men who had been killed aboard that shuttle, and he was going to personally make sure that the alien bastards who killed them were brought to heel by the might of the Turian Hierarchy.

General Desolas Arterius had quickly mustered a massive force to take on the evidently hostile aliens, with a fleet comprising of six Dreadnoughts, forty Cruisers, and a dozen Frigate squadrons. It was extremely surprising, considering it had only been about a day since they'd escaped 314. Immediately after returning, he'd sent an encrypted message to Palaven High Command. High Command, predicting another Rachni incident, had responded by sending a massive fleet. Once the fleet was fully armed and fuelled, something that was scheduled to be completed within the next few days. Then the fleet would deploy through the relay, which according to the intel that Fortix had brought back, was not guarded. The fleet would then divide into battlegroups and FTL jump to the planet.

And then the bastards would pay.

* * *

**Codex:**

**Ships and Vehicles – Military Ship Classification: [Addendum] United Nations Warship Classification.**

_Larger warships are generally classified in one of six weights:_

_-FRIGATES are small, fast ships used for scouting and screening larger vessels. Frigates often operate in "wolf-pack" flotillas, but are often used for battlefield reconnaissance. They are also used as a heavy landing craft and recovery vehicle for vehicles that are incapable of making it back into orbit by themselves, thanks to their spacious cargo holds._

_-DESTROYERS are a specialised type of heavy frigate for escorting and eliminating capital-class vessels. Typically deployed in support of fighter and interceptor squadrons._

_-CRUISERS are middle-weight combatants, faster than battleships, more heavily armed than frigates, and more heavily armoured than destroyers. Cruisers are the standard patrol unit, and often lead frigate flotillas._

_-DREADNOUGHTS are kilometre-and-a-half-long capital ships mounting heavy, long-range firepower. They are used as system defence monitors, and are rarely deployed outside their home systems._

_-BATTLESHIPS are kilometre long capital warships carrying immense batteries of broadside and bombardment weaponry. They have the heaviest armour of any human built ship, but are used primarily for planetary assault, although they are designed for close range devastation of enemy fleets._

_-CARRIERS are vessels even larger than dreadnoughts. They come in two types, the Fleet Carrier and the Assault Carrier. Fleet carriers primarily carry strike fighters and bombers, while Assault Carriers are dedicated planetary assault platforms, capable of carrying Tactical Surface Fighters, strike fighters, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and dropships, in staggering numbers._

_Smaller vessels are exclusively used in a support role to the warships during combat:_

_-STRIKE FIGHTERS are one-man craft used to perform close range attacks on enemy ships, and to screen friendly units from enemy fighters. They are also used as fast-moving air-support during ground operations._

_-BOMBERS are two-to-three man craft used to perform close range attacks against enemy capital ships, by firing massive volleys of missiles and railgun fire at enemy ships._

**Starships: Frigates [Addendum – United Nations Frigates]**

_Frigates are light escort and scouting vessels. They often have extensive GARDIAN systems to provide anti-fighter screening for capital ships, and carry a squad of marines for security and groundside duty. Like larger vessels, frigates are able to land on planets, and are preferred for this role due to their smaller size and easier handling compared to the large cruisers and massive battleships or carriers. Frigates also have large cargo holds which allows them to be used as landing craft for ground vehicles, and recovery vehicles for atmospheric craft and TSFs that cannot reach orbit under their own power._

_Frigate drive systems allow them to achieve high STL and FTL cruise speeds. They also have proportionally larger thrusters and lighter design mass, allowing them to manoeuvre more handily. In combat, speed and manoeuvrability make a frigate immune to the long-range fire of larger vessels; in the time it takes projectiles to reach them, frigates are no longer where they were predicted to be._

_In fleet combat, frigates are organized into "wolf pack" flotillas of four to six. Wolf packs speed through enemy formations, hunting enemy vessels whose kinetic barriers have been taken down by fighter-launched disruptor torpedoes and missiles, and wounding those that aren't, with their spinal particle cannons. The wolf-pack circle-strafes vulnerable targets, using their superior speed and manoeuvrability to evade return fire._

_United Nations frigates are named for great battles in human history._

**Starships: Destroyers**

_Destroyers are heavily armed frigate-sized vessels designed to screen capital ships from enemy fighters and frigates. They are armed in a similar manner to bombers, but on the scale of a warship. As such, the scale of their armament is increased comparatively. Destroyers cull enemy fighter squadrons using their massive batteries of short range laser weapons and stream-fire railguns. They are also equipped with missiles, in numbers well beyond overkill for ships of their size._

_During combat, destroyers will also be deployed in support of bomber squadrons to assault enemy capital ships. A single destroyer, with its enormous array of missiles, magnetic accelerators and lasers, can gut a cruiser. Unfortunately, to maintain the manoeuvrability that they share with frigates, destroyers eschew heavy armour, making them highly vulnerable to return fire while hunting capital ships._

_Destroyers are named after cities on Earth lost to the BETA_

**Starships: Cruisers [Addendum – United Nations Cruisers]**

_Cruiser-weight starships are the standard combat unit encountered away from large naval bases, the "poor bloody infantry" of most fleets. Nimble scouting frigates have neither the punch nor the stamina to stand up to serious combat, agile destroyers have the firepower but lack the durability, and the mighty battleships are a strategic resource, carefully kept away from front line naval combat and committed to only the most critical battles._

_Cruisers form the core of the fleets defending the colonies, supported by dreadnoughts, and lead flotillas of frigates in small engagements, such as pirate suppression campaigns. In major fleet engagements, cruiser squadrons protect the core of the formation, usually a carrier or battleship, by screening their flanks against enemies attempting to manoeuvre for a main gun "bow shot" from their vulnerable broadsides._

_United Nations cruisers are named after the cities of Earth and her colonies._

**Starships: Dreadnoughts [Addendum – United Nations Dreadnoughts]**

_Dreadnoughts are the heavy capital ships of system defence fleets, supported by large numbers of cruisers; the dreadnought is considered the ultimate arbiter of defensive firepower, with millions of tonnes of metal, ceramic and polymer dedicated to projecting firepower capable of destroying any vessel of any size and firepower that intrudes into its home system._

_A dreadnoughts power lies in the length of its main gun. Dreadnoughts are typically 1600 metres in length, with the main gun running most of the length. The a 1500 metre mass accelerator is capable of accelerating one 200 kilogram slug to a velocity of 7145km/s every twelve seconds. Each slug has the kinetic energy of 1.22 megatons of TNT, more than thirty two times the energy released by the fission weapon that destroyed Berlin. As such, being anywhere within sight of a dreadnought is equivalent to already being dead. If a dreadnought is used to bombard a planet, there must be something there that needs to be annihilated out of existence._

_When used to bombard planets, some of this kinetic energy is lost due to atmospheric re-entry friction. As a rule of thumb, each Earth-atmosphere of air pressure saps approximately 20% of projectiles impact energy. Not that this is any consolation to the inhabitants of said planet._

_In addition to their ridiculously powerful main cannon, dreadnoughts also employ broadside mass accelerators of similar power to those of a cruiser, in the event that the massive vessel is too close to the enemy ship to use the spinal gun._

_United Nations dreadnoughts are named after mountains on Earth._

**Starships: Battleships**

_To be caught in close range combat with a battleship is to have been written off as dead. The kilometre-long warships are designed precisely for that role, with mass accelerator and particle cannon broadsides capable of gutting a shielded dreadnought. Battleships can also take as much as they can dish out, with armour massing millions of tonnes and metres thick, reinforced with a honey-combed hull superstructure to absorb impacts._

_Despite being designed for devastating enemy ships at point blank range, the sheer cost of producing them means they are rarely used in such a role, and are relegated to system defence and orbital bombardment._

_When battleships do engage in naval warfare, however, they plow straight into the enemy fleet through gaps in the line made by cruisers, frigates and bombers, before utterly annihilating everything around it. Other tactics include FTL jumping them into close proximity of enemy capital ships, decapitating the enemy fleet in one strike._

_In the event that cruiser support is unavailable, battleships are mounted with a pair of cruiser-scale spinal cannons._

_Battleships are named after famous last stand battles from pre-BETA Earth._

**Starships: Carriers**

_All races provide their fleets with organic fighter support. Cruisers fit a handful in the space between the interior pressure hulls and exterior armor. Dreadnoughts have a hangar deck within the hull. Humans – who had only "recently graduated" from surface to space combat – were the first to build ships wielding fighters as the main armament._

_In fleet combat, carriers stay clear of battle, launching fighters bearing disruptor torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. Fighters are the primary striking power of the ship; if a carrier enters mass accelerator range of the enemy, things have gone very wrong. This is, however, not the worst possible scenario, as carriers still more heavily armed and armoured than cruisers, mounting a 900 metre mass accelerator, along with large numbers of stream-fire railguns and missile batteries. Some tactics even call for the carrier to act as the centre of the main formation in a front line battle._

_It is possible to recover and rearm fighters during combat, though most carriers seal the flight deck and try to stay out of the way. To limit the damage that could be done by a well-placed torpedo or missile strike, the launch decks of carriers are sectioned off outriggers of the main hull; that is, they are separated from the hull by armour in volumes equivalent to the exterior of the ship. The launch decks are further protected by massive numbers of defence lasers._

_United Nations Fleet carriers are named after the lost ancient cities of Earth, while Assault carriers are named after ones from human mythology._

**Starships: Strike Fighters**

_Strike fighters are single-pilot small craft. Their high-thrust, high efficiency engines and manoeuvring thrusters make them capable of much greater acceleration and sharper manoeuvres than starships. During combat, strike fighters are loaded with anti-fighter micro-missiles, in addition to their stream mass accelerators. Against warships, they are armed with anti-ship missiles, which are sometimes loaded with thermonuclear warheads._

_They are also used to screen friendly bombers from enemy fighter craft._

_Strike fighters are designed as atmospheric/exo-atmospheric craft, and are capable of launching from the surface of a planet to fight in orbit. However, due to the lengthy amount of time required for them to reach orbit, strike fighters launching from the ground will often launch using modular multi-stage rocket systems._

_During operations within a planet's atmosphere, strike fighters will typically carry air-to-ground and air-to-air missiles in place of the more specialised anti-ship and space-anti-fighter missiles._

_Each model of fighter is named after a type of faery._

**Starships: Bombers**

_Bombers are long-ranged two-to-three man craft that are somewhat larger than strike fighters. They are used to perform close range attacks against enemy capital ships during space combat, using the enormous numbers of anti-ship missiles carried in their internal bays and on their wing and fuselage hardpoints, along with railgun streams to use when missiles have been expended._

_Bombers are much slower and less manoeuvrable than fighters, and have little anti-fighter armament beyond their nose mounted railguns; squadrons of bombers must be escorted by fighters, lest they be picked off by enemy fighters._

_Like fighters, bombers are also atmospheric/exo-atmospheric craft, and can engage in planetary combat. During such missions, however, their main armaments are exchanged for smart-freefall bombs and air-to-ground missiles, and the mass of their loads must be reduced to allow them to actually leave the ground._

_Each model of bomber is named after a type of ghost or shadow._

* * *

**Hey guys its been two weeks, sorry I took that long. And sorry that the codex is longer than the chapter...I'm better at writing factional then fictional. Anyway, question time:**

**-Kaioo: definitely don't want to go that route. Too cliche, too boring.**

**-angrycritique: Yes I've downplayed the BETA. Its post-Alternative Earth in Mass Effect. And I do have an explanation for why the BETA aren't everywhere, and for why the Citadel hasn't encountered them. And for why they don't adapt they way you might expect. As for the Heavy-laser, they can't hit things directly overhead. According to the wiki (which is taken from the various source books), [heavy-lasers] **are effective against targets of up to a mere 500 meters high, and a spectacular range of over 100 kilometers . **26000 kilometres doesn't even make sense, since that distance is longer than the diameter of the Earth, and considering their 500 metre max altitude, you would have to be in a ridiculous and impractically high orbit. **

**To further differ humanity from the Citadel races, I've given humanity new classes of ships, or change existing ones significantly.**

**Frigates: imagine the Normandy SR-1, with a longer, slightly wider cargo bay.**

**Destroyers: Same as a UN Frigate, but with the cargo bay turned into an enormous missile pod. Also picture lots of guns poking out of the hull.**

**Battleships: Cross an Alliance Dreadnought with a Halcyon-cruiser from Halo. And then tack on hundreds of broadside guns.**

**Carriers: the colony ships from Muv-Luv Unlimited.**

**See you guys next time.**

**EDIT: Thanks Ordo Rolanberry for point out my calculation error.**


	4. Contact Procedures

24th April, 2157

_Taiyun Base, Shanxi. 20 kilometres from Objective 02._

1st Lieutenant Mari Bridges wiped the sweat from her brow. Despite how cool and temperate Shanxi was, it was a lot of work scrubbing the BETA guts off of her F-62 Comet. Especially since the TSF was 18.2 metres tall. It had taken the maintenance crew eighteen hours so far to clean the gunk out of the jump-engines alone, and they were still going. Then there was still all the maintenance to be done on the mechanical and electronic systems, not to mention the downtime repairs to her reactors.

She looked around the hangar, taking in the sight of so many damaged and battered TSFs. Of the forty-four pilots that had entered the hive, only eighteen had emerged, and of those, five were going to be unfit for combat for years to come. Orbital bombardment, no matter how powerful, no matter how devastating, would always miss a few Forts and most of the BETA that were deep underground.

After Mari and Sasha had linked up with the Phoenix II's from the 81st Light Assault and the Sentinel Tanks and Thresher IFVs from the 43rd Light Armoured, they'd been redirected, along with the rest of the overwatch units from the 54th, to support the Marines from the 258th Light Armoured who were clearing the area where Taiyun Base was being set up.

And once the important areas of the base were set up, namely the vehicle repair hangars, the base medical centre and the barracks, Mari was able to sit and watch as the battered remains of the assault battalions stagger in. Despite the fact that they successfully destroyed the Hive, less than half of the forces that had gone in had managed to return.

Much of 3rd Squadron had been among the casualties, along with Colonel Locke, the Helljumpers commander. They were reorganising into five five-pilot TSF squadrons, with Captain Smith being promoted to Battalion Commander. Mari had managed to score herself a promotion to 1st Lieutenant.

The base had also been reinforced by two companies of Phoenix-IIs from the 81st, who had been dropped a few kilometres from the hive; something about "rescuing a few VIPs." The whole explanation seemed fishy, but she wasn't going to question it. They hadn't taken very serious casualties, despite having been dropped right into the middle of a regiments-worth of BETA. Because of that, they didn't need much in the way of repairs or reorganisation, and had been assigned as the primary base defence unit until the area was cleared enough for the fleets' frigates to land and pick them up.

Mari stopped scrubbing and admired her handiwork. She had managed to scour the BETA gore from the left shoulder block of her Comet. And it had only taken her three hours.

Sasha climbed up next to her on the scaffolding. Despite her TSF being equipped as an Impact Guard, the loadout for which included a Melee Halberd, Sasha's Comet was significantly less gore-plastered; she'd finished cleaning up her fighter over an hour ago. They didn't even need to de-gunk her engines.

"Yo, Bridges, did you hear the scuttlebutt about the fleet?"

"_No_," Mari looked at her, puzzled, "I've spent all my time cleaning my bird. What's the word?"

"There's something big going on up in the fleet. Something big. Apparently Lt General Williams cancelled his visit the base and stepped down as commander of the Expeditionary Fleet because of it. Rear Admiral Rush is in charge now."

"Hmm….."

"It might have something to do with the pilots from the 81st Battalion. The ones who went to pick up those 'VIPs'. A few of us were going to ask around and see what we can dig up. You in?"

Mari paused, and then looked at her still coated fighter.

Sasha got the message. "Come find me once you're done. Then we can really get digging."

* * *

_UNS Athens, in orbit over Shanxi_

"General, the translation program is finished."

"Good. Upload the program to my neural hardware. And tell everyone who worked on it 'good job'."

"Yes General."

"Have Lieutenant Commander Shepard join me outside our guests' quarters. Time for some negotiations."

* * *

Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian stood up as the human known as Williams entered the room. Behind him were Shepard, and another human female, a shorter one with short yellow fur.

Sorus was expecting another probing mind-meld, so he readied himself.

What he was not expecting was for Williams to being speaking in turian standard.

"Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Lieutenant General Frederic Williams of the United Nations Marine Corps." He gestured to Shepard, "You've already met Lieutenant Commander Hannah Shepard, United Nations Navy. And who you haven't met before, is Professor Anita Goyle, our governments' representative."

It took Sorus a moment to realise that Williams wasn't actually speaking the language; instead, the sound was emitting from a small speaker sitting near Williams's mouth. Williams himself wasn't actually moving his mouth. _Hmm, neural implants?_

Sorus thought for a moment, before replying. "I am Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian, ground forces commander, assigned to the cruiser _Indomitable_, of the Turian Hierarchy Navy and the Citadel Defence Fleet."

Williams scratched his hairless head. "Good to meet you, Lieutenant. Now, my government has asked me to begin negotiations with your people on their behalf. But before that, since you are military, would you care for a tour of our ship?"

"Certainly, General. But first, I have to ask, on behalf of my men and the Hierarchy, what were those monsters that attacked us down there before? And what shot us down?"

Williams paused, before switching off his translator and saying something to Goyle, who nodded and walked away. Then he turned back to Vakarian.

"If you'll follow me, I'll show you."

Williams and Shepard led Vakarian, Karick and Piran to what appeared to be a briefing room. There was a large screen built into the wall, and what appeared to be a large holo-projector in at the centre of the 'stage'. Sorus made sure that they were all recording. They needed some evidence that they could use in their reports.

"Now, those things that attacked you, we call those 'BETA'," he said the word in his own language, "which stands for 'Being of Extra-Terrestrial origin that is the Adversary of the human race'." He repeated the acronym an approximation in turian. He pulled up a hologram of the red ones that had attacked his downed shuttle. "They come in numerous varieties. The ones that attacked you are called 'Tank-class'.

"Now, to explain this, we need to give you some background for why we fight these things. You were on that shuttle because you were observing the battle, correct?" Vakarian nodded. Williams pulled up a hologram of a planet. Its surface was rust red. "This is Mars, the fourth planet in our home system, Sol. During our early unmanned exploration of our solar system, we encountered the BETA on Mars. We lost contact with the probes immediately afterwards."

Williams pulled up another hologram, this time of a blue-green-brown planet with a large grey moon orbiting it. Williams stepped back. "This is Earth, our homeworld. If negotiations work out, maybe you can visit some time. Anyhow, a few years after our encounter with the BETA on Mars, we found them on our moon, Luna. They destroyed our bases and killed all of our personnel, leading us to wage war against them for six years on the surface. We lost, and they began to land on Earth." The hologram shifted to focus on _Earth_, and a red circle appeared on its largest continent. Then the red slowly began growing in random directions, and off to the side there was a number shown in both human and turian numerals, which Vakarian assumed to be the year that the events had taken place. 1973, 1974, 1975…

Williams continued, "Eventually, after decades of defeats, we lost the majority of Eurasia." The most massive of the continents was completely red, aside from a few large islands and a large chunk of land on the eastern side. The year counter read 1998. "That continent was the most populated on the planet, with over seventy percent of our population. By this point the population of Earth was down to around one billion." The counter continued to tick, and the red slowly expanded.

"After a series of desperate attacks on the main hives," Williams pulled up an image of a BETA hive on the wall-screen, "we managed to stall the BETA enough to wipe them from the face of our planet."

Vakarian watched as the red marks on the globe began to recede. It was a slow process, and Sorus watched the counter tick over from 2001, continuing until it hit 2012, where there was no more red on the map. It stopped counting.

Piran spoke up, "Those numbers there, those are the years, correct?"

"Yes, Trooper Piran," said Shepard.

"Then what year is it now, by your calendar?"

"It is currently 2157. The last BETA on Earth was killed 145 years ago. There aren't any humans left alive from the time." Piran nodded.

Williams stepped back up to the holo-projector. "Now, to your other question, Lieutenant Vakarian, what shot you down?" Several small creatures appeared on the projector. Sorus recognised the _Tank-class_ that had attacked his men, along with two much smaller figures representing humans and turians. He noticed that each and every one of the creatures was shown as being larger than them.

"Is this to scale?"

"Yes."

"Hmm..." Vakarian didn't show it, but inside he was completely astonished. Some of them were over thirty times the height of a turian. "So which one shot us down?"

Williams pointed to two of the figures. Both looked like asari brains with eyes and legs. The one with two eyes stood around three metres tall, while the other one, the single eyed one, looked to be around twenty.

"This is a Laser-class, and this is a Heavy Laser-class. The BETA use them as anti-air platforms. Although since your shuttle crashed instead of being vaporised, we can assume it was a regular Laser-class."

Karick pitched in, "Laser-class?"

"Explaining it would require a biophysicist, a particle physicist, an engineer, and a tanker full of alcohol. It's complicated, but the BETA originally deployed them in response to our air forces decimating them during the initial Earth landings."

"So what did you use to win?"

"I believe that you three have already seen them. We call them Tactical Surface Fighters. I'll show you some combat footage that we have for training purposes." A vid loaded on the screen. "This footage is from 159 years ago, from the Fall of Kyoto. This footage was taken recovered from the TSF of a young pilot named Yui Takamura, who was fourteen years old at the time of the battle."

Before he had realised it, Sorus had spent hours watching old combat footage and discussing strategy with his men and General Williams. Shepard had left a while ago, saying something about "duties that had to be attended to".

Williams had decided to call it a night, promising to give them the tour later.

* * *

_Taiyun Base_

Mari followed Sasha into the hangar that normally housed the Phoenixes used by the Marines of C Company, 81st Light Assault Battalions. It had taken them quite a bit of digging to figure out that the Marines who had rescued the "VIPs" the other day had been part of the battalions' C and E Companies. Unfortunately, nearly all of the pilots from those companies were out on patrol or on scout missions.

Except for, according to what they'd dug up, a single squad from C Company, who were down for maintenance and repairs.

Mari turned to one of the TSFs, since her neural net had tagged a Marine in that direction as a pilot from C Company. As she walked over to it, she could see a pair of short, slim legs in rolled up work coveralls poking out from underneath AWS-38 assault cannon. She could hear a quiet voice mumbling from under the TSF scale gun.

As she got closer, her implants tagged the pilot as one "PFC Yoruda, Shizuka; Pilot, 5th Squad, C Company, 81st Light Assault Battalion. Age: 17. Service Number: 25963-84571-SY."

"Ariel, I've calibrated the secondary targeting array. Try to –"

* * *

Shizuka shuddered and went quiet as she felt two very curious presences approach her. She slid out from under the assault cannon. And was greeted by two women in their mid-twenties, one with a devious grin on her face, and the other looking obviously curious, but also had a somewhat worried look in her eyes.

The grinning one looked down at her. "Hey there, Private, do you have a minute?"

Shizuka felt a chill run through her small body.

* * *

25th April, 2157

_UNS Athens_

Arys Daela's eyes opened, and she found herself staring up at a white ceiling. By the Goddess, her head was throbbing, like she had been out drinking with some maidens. Her hearing was coming back, and she could hear voices. Except that they weren't in any language she recognised.

Then she heard a shout, there were footsteps that seemed to be coming towards her, and then there was a face looking down at her. Rather, more of a darkened visor than a face. The mask spoke, again in that unknown language. Arys shook her head. _I don't know what you're saying. I don't understand!_

"Are you alright? Can you tell me what your name is?" _Huh? What? I understood that!_

It took her a moment to realise that the unknown being was speaking turian. Her translator recognised it and switched itself to project in turian.

"Who are you?" Arys croaked out the words. It felt like she hadn't spoken in years.

"Hold on, I'll inform the General." The 'turian' spoke a few words at nothing in the unidentified language, before looking back at her. "Now, what was your name?"

"Arys. Arys Daela."

"I see. Do you know what happened before you crashed?"

The memories came back to Arys somewhat blurred. But the images cleared and she remembered.

"I was on a shuttle. From the _Indomitable_. We were supposed to observe and if possible make contact with the aliens from the ships we encountered. I don't remember anything after that. Medicae, do you know if we made contact with those people?"

"You're speaking with one right now."

_Huh?!_

The medicae depolarised the visor, and Daela found herself staring at a face that was so much like her own.

* * *

Lieutenant Vakarian, with Troopers Karick and Piran, was being led down the corridor to what was presumably the hangar bay of the ship by General Williams and some of his Marines. Since Williams had said "hangar", Sorus had assumed that he was on-board a dreadnought, since by Citadel standards, only a dreadnought was large enough to warrant having a full size hangar. Or maybe it was one of those super-dreadnoughts that had been spotted by the _Indomitable_.

Williams stopped and looked at Sorus. "Lieutenant, I have some good news for you. Your asari scientist, Doctor Arys Daela, is awake. We'll visit her later in the tour. Now then, this is TSF Hangar Three."

Sorus was amazed at the sight. More than forty TSFs, much larger than the ones that rescued him on the surface, stood silently, locked to the hangar walls. Retractable walkways crossed infront of the sleeping giants, as maintenance crews worked on the machines.

Williams was still talking. "These are UN Navy F-60 Yukikaze II Heavy-TSFs. As you can see, they haven't been launched. I would say something about Navy flyboys, but it wouldn't be polite to do that in front of guests. Especially since, in reality, these machines are going to be used to hit the next Hive." The General caught on to the turians gaping. "It's always amazing to see how far humanity has come from walking tanks and hydrocarbon jet engines. I'd ask you boys if you wanted to take one for a spin, but the Navy is oddly adamant about their 'neural-only' systems, and this is a Navy carrier. Sorry about that."

"It's not a problem General. I should also point out that Piran is female."

"Oh. I meant no offence, Trooper Piran. I couldn't tell."

Piran nodded. "None taken. You aren't likely to meet a female turian outside of turian space."

"I see."

"General, if I may ask, how do you have room for all of this? Where are the primary gun batteries? The broadsides? There's no way you could fit this all on a dreadnought."

"This isn't a dreadnought. It's a type of ship we call a 'carrier'. Primary armaments in space combat are strike fighters and bombers. The other carrier in the fleet, the _Atlantis_, mostly carries ground troops, vehicles and TSFs."

"Interesting concept."

* * *

_Indomitable, near Relay 314._

The assault fleet was finally ready to jump through Relay 314 to take on the law-breaking aliens who were bombarding the garden world on the other side. _And to avenge my men_, thought Captain Decius Fortix.

The plan was simple. A probe would be sent through the relay, and if no enemy forces were present, the entire fleet would jump through as a single unit. Following the relay transit, the fleet would FTL jump to approximately 300,000km from the planet, now designated 314A1-4[G], which stood for Relay 314, Primary System, Fourth Planet [Garden World]. Once the fleet was in range, they would order the aliens to stand down and surrender to the might of the Hierarchy. Then they would be made into a client race. If they didn't surrender, their puny fleet would be annihilated.

"Sir," reported Lieutenant Victus, "probe telemetry is being downloaded to the fleet. Scans look clear."

The communications officer, Lieutenant Varulis, spoke up, "Captain, General Arterius has ordered the fleet to jump."

Fortix nodded, before setting his omni-tool to transmit across the whole ship.

"All hands, prepare for relay jump."

* * *

_UNS Athens_

Williams was continuing the tour, and was about to detour the turians to the medical bay so they could meet their asari companion, when the alarms began to sound.

"Deja, what's going on?"

"Admiral Rush has ordered the fleet to full alert. A few minutes ago, the probes orbiting the Theta Relay detected a very large number of ships similar in design to the _Indomitable._ It is highly likely that this is in response to our bombardment of Shanxi, and the turians may have associated the Expeditionary Fleet with the crash of Lieutenant Vakarian's shuttle two days ago."

"Dammit. Tell Rush not to do anything rash." He turned to his turian guests. "Lieutenant, looks like you three get to go home. I'll have a dropship prepped. If you would be so kind, could you please keep your friends from shooting at us?"

"We'll try, General." Vakarian saluted, Piran and Karick following suit within a heartbeat. Williams returned their salute, before nodding. "Oh, and General," said Vakarian, "tell Lieutenant Commander Shepard that I'd love to meet her daughter some time, once this is all over."

Williams nodded, before turning to the Marine guard. "Get these three to the hangar. They've got a war to prevent."

Deja pinged him again. "Sir, the ships have jumped. They are most likely on their way here."

* * *

_Taiyun Base_

Shizuka lay in bed, clawing at her ears as the extremely loud noise dug its way into her skull. Until she realised that it was the bases alert siren. And that the bed she was in wasn't her bunk in the enlisted barracks. And that she was completely naked. And that next to her lay the equally naked 1st Lieutenants Sasha Ivanova and Mari Bridges. And that there were empty bottles scattered around the room. Her face went bright red.

_Oh God, what did I do last night!?_

Still slightly hung-over, the young pilot dressed herself as quickly as she could and woke up the unconscious Lieutenants with a volley of underwear and uniform pieces, before taking off towards the hangar bay.

* * *

_UNS Athens, Dropship Launch-bay 03_

Sorus Vakarian was seated next to the human communications officer on the shuttle, which he had learned was called a D-22 Sabretooth, frantically tapping on his omni-tool, trying to sync the shuttle's long-range communications system to it. In the seats behind him, Piran and Karick were shuffling through the data they had collected, chopping together a report that would, hopefully, convince the fleet to stand down. They had included just about everything, from their own mission reports, casualty reports from the crash, their combat footage of the BETA, plus as much as they could piece together from their recordings from their time aboard the _Athens_.

A voice came over the radio. "Badger 2-4, you are cleared for launch. Godspeed, boys."

"Roger that, _Athens_ Control. Badger 2-4, lifting off," replied the pilot.

Sorus was slammed into his seat as the shuttle was accelerated down the carrier's launch rails.

* * *

_Indomitable, CIC_

"Captain," said the _Indomitable's_ helmsman, "FTL jump complete. We are within the fleets' safety margin, and are in position at the front of the firing line."

"Captain, General Arterius is ordering all ships to standby, awaiting orders."

* * *

_Athens, CIC_

"General, turians ships detected emerging from FTL one light second out, within ecliptic."

Williams watched the ships appear on the holo-projector. Some of them were quite large. _But not a big as my carrier_.

"Vector Badger 2-4 towards the fleet. All ships, rotate primary weapons towards the turian fleet. Assume neutral unless fired upon."

* * *

_Indomitable, CIC_

"General!" shouted Lieutenant Victus, "shuttle detected vectoring towards us at high velocity."

"Target it. If it gets too close, destroy it." _An eye for an eye, huh._

* * *

_Badger 2-4_

Sorus set the shuttle's communications system to transmit on every turian and Citadel frequency he was privy to. He turned to Piran, who gave a 'thumbs up', as Williams had called it, and held up her omni-tool, which was ready to transmit a large, hyper compressed data packet.

Sorus nodded, and then turned to the human seated next to him. "You ready?"

"Nope, but really mate, who could be ready for something like this?" The human let out a broken laugh. "Alright, here goes." The human switched on the transmitter.

"Turian Fleet, this is Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian of the cruiser _Indomitable_. I repeat, this is Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian of the cruiser _Indomitable. _Stand down. The humans are not hostile. I repeat the humans are not hostile. Transmitting verification codes."

* * *

_Indomitable, CIC_

Lieutenant Adrien Victus stood up from his console. "Captain, the shuttle appears to be transmitting. Multiple frequencies." Victus looked puzzled. "Captain, each of the frequencies is Hierarchy military or Citadel Defence."

Fortix stared at him, before turning to the communications officer. "Lieutenant Varulis, put it on the loud-speaker. I want to hear this."

" –_rian of the cruiser _Indomitable_. I repeat, this is Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian of the cruiser _Indomitable_. Stand down. The humans are not hostile. I repeat the humans are not hostile. Transmitting verification codes."_

_He's alive? It can't be._

"Lieutenant?"

"Sir, the codes check out. It really is Lieutenant Vakarian."

"Dammit. Crew, stand down. Varulis, open a channel to that shuttle."

"Right away sir. Also, General Arterius demands to know why the _Indomitable _is standing down."

"Tell him we are in communications with the alien shuttle."

"Yes, sir. And sir, the link to the shuttle is ready."

"Good. Patch me in."

A familiar face appeared on the three main view-screens.

"Captain Fortix, Good to see you again."

"Lieutenant Vakarian. Care to explain why you are on an alien shuttle?"

Vakarian clicked his mandibles. "Ugh, right. Long story, sir. Anyway, I have Troopers Piran and Karick with me, and we've compiled a report of the shuttle crash, along with what we've learned about the aliens. They're called humans, by the way. Oh, and Doctor Daela is still alive as well. She woke up this morning, and we were about to visit her when your fleet jumped into the system."

"I see. Transmit me your report then. I need a reason to convince General Arterius not to blow up your new friends' fleet."

"Yes sir, although I should notify you that it's a fairly big report." Vakarian turned away for a moment. "Piran reports that we are ready to transmit the data packet."

Lieutenant Varulis spoke up. "General, we are receiving the data now. It's a large transfer."

"I see. Isolate one of your consoles from the system, and run the package in safe mode."

"Yes sir. Items are indexed. First item is a video recording. It appears to be from three synced helmet cameras. Time-stamped to not long after the shuttle crashed two days ago. Attached is a casualty report."

"Vakarian, we've received the package and are verifying it now. Have your shuttle standby at 20,000 kilometres off the bow of the _Indomitable_."

"Yes, Captain," came the reply.

"Varulis, put it up on the centre screen."

Decius Fortix watched as Vakarian, Karick and Piran ran for their lives through the forest, dragging Doctor Daela with them, as the red monsters devoured Sergeant Vierius and Trooper Rakal, before proceeding to tear apart the shuttle, which still contained the bodies of Flight Lieutenant Haxal and Troopers Bentar and Warick.

"The humans call them 'BETA'. They've been fighting them for nearly two of their centuries. Those ones are 'Tank-classes'."

"I see."

On the screen, Vakarian and his men reached the clearing, only to find themselves completely surrounded. He heard the heavy thumps, which was followed by the ground team looking around frantically. There was a shout, and dozens of 9 metre giants were surrounding the team, firing into the hordes. Vakarian and his men were dragged aboard a shuttle that landed nearby.

"By the spirits, what were those?"

"The humans call them Tactical Surface Fighters. Seems that they've been their primary weapon for combating the BETA since they first encountered them. Think of it as a giant security mech, only piloted, and capable of flight and near-perfect optical stealth. Apparently they were an offshoot of their atmospheric fighters. We've seen some of their combat footage from before the humans left their solar system, and there is a type of BETA that is capable of producing lasers capable of destroying warships."

"You really expect me to believe that?"

"Sir, the Laser-class are the very reason they developed TSFs and their active camouflage systems. Apparently, during the early invasion, they were only able to hold the BETA back with massed numbers of airdropped munitions, which failed once the Laser-classes appeared. TSFs were the human's response to that. Their active camouflage systems are a further development to defend against Lasers. The reason we were shot down was because the BETA saw us. The active camo allowed the humans to rescue us. It's all in my report, sir."

"I see. I'll pass this intel along to General Arterius. I'll try to convince him to stand down."

"Thank you, sir. Now, I'd better return General Williams' shuttle." Vakarian raised his hand to his head in salute. Fortix returned the gesture.

* * *

**Codex**:

**Technology: Neural Networks**

_One of the staples of human society and military, the neural network implant has become ubiquitous throughout humanity. The network is constructed of nano-chelated circuitry connecting to the various centres of the brain. The basic components are a dispersed microframe computer, cortical stimulators, and wireless interfaces for various kinds of technology._

_Additional functions vary depending on the type of implant issued by the UN government. They range from simple visual display systems and touch interfaces, for say, opening a door; to the full body neural interceptors implanted in TSF and Strike Fighter pilots._

_The neural interceptors interrupt signals all signals from the motor cortex to the body, instead interpreting them into movements for the vehicle to perform. In a sense, the vehicle becomes the pilots body. For Hardiman drivers, it is a simple process, since the suit instead copies the users' neural signals and uses them to amplify the users' movements. It is a more complicated story for TSF and Strike Fighter pilots, since operating those requires a whole area of movement unavailable to normal humans. As such, additional systems are grown into the brains of pilots corresponding to the necessary parts of the vehicle. For pilots, this is necessary to allow fluid, precise and instinctual control over their vehicles during flight and combat._

_Military personnel and enthusiastic civilians often modify their hardware, software, and their wetware interfaces. Some, who enjoy the "classical" feel of keyboards, employ a simple visual interface along with haptic stimulators in the motor cortex to emulate the feeling of using a real keyboard._

**Technology: Electronic Camouflage Fields**

_Electronic Camouflage Fields, or ECFs, are mounted on all United Nations combat vehicles, from Hardimans to TSFs and Dropships. The system works by generating an energy field that bends light around it._

_ECF was developed to try and mask aircraft and TSFs from Laser-class BETA, after testing proved that they located their targets using a range of infrared and visual light. As such, the field refracts light around the machine, and absorbs as much heat as possible, while dispersing the rest carefully. As a result, the field can be disrupted by running a vehicles energy output above a certain point. During TSF Orbital Dives, there is an altitude called the "safe level", the altitude above which a TSFs required deceleration thrust is beyond what the field can sustain. Running close to the limit will cause the field to shimmer, as the heat begins to leak into the air around the vehicle._

_Weapons fire will also cause ECFs to break, due since the field projectors cannot keep up with the rapid electromagnetic discharges within its confines. This is, however, limited to electromagnetic accelerator weapons, so traditional chemically powered weapons will work within the field. However, these are rarely used, due to the reduced firepower and ammunition capacity of chemical propelled weaponry._

_ECF systems can also be used by regular infantry units, but each individual must carry an enlarged fuel cell to power the device. The weight is offset by the fact that most United Nations Infantrymen are equipped with light-exoskeleton systems as part of their combat gear._

* * *

**So, I tried to fix my writing pace by hammering out this chapter today, but I've spent something like 8 hours on it, and I'm pretty tired, so I'll try to work out something I'm comfortable with.**

**Alright, now review question time:**

**-HolyKnight5: I really don't want to give anybody the stupid stick. I might give someone the ignorance stick, but that would be balanced out by making them _reasonable_. Thats something I never understood about Mass Effect. Nobody seems to think clearly, and it comes down to someone overreacting to something. Turians attacking a race that is new to the galaxy for trying to activate a relay, Quarians attempting to wipe out the geth because they accidentally created AI, the Council refusing Krogan expansion after the Rachni wars. Nobody ever seems to sit down and think things through. So I'm not going to dump the blame on Desolas. Hell, I might not dump the blame on anybody. Oh, and I'm thinking about a future events where turians and maybe salarians have TSFs, due to their combat utility.**

**-Ordo Rolanberry: Yeah thanks for pointing out the error. I adjusted it, but it didn't feel powerful enough for what I was looking at. So I increased the mass of the rounds by an order of magnitude. Now its fun.**

**-To Mr Guest: right...sure...first time fic...ok then. And I already did the timeline. And if you actually played Mass Effect, you would notice that most of the codex entries in _Aliens_ are rewritten entries from the games.**

**-Imabot: I really want to avoid one of the cliche curbstomp First Contact War scenarios. While they can be interesting, in the end it comes down to "our tech is better because X". Sometimes it can come out good, where humanity is only slightly better, or humanity is made ridiculously powerful for the sake of hilarity. But the middle ground is just annoying. So here, human ships might be more diverse and some of them might be more powerful than their Citadel counterparts, but they are balanced by a complete lack of Element Zero, slower FTL, and space combat tactics based purely on theory. Even the fighters, which don't have use Eezo cores, have to manoeuvre in a completely different way. And no disruptor torpedoes. UN Anti-ship missiles rely completely on their impact velocity and the energy from the warhead detonation, hence the nuclear anti-ship missiles. tl;dr, The only real advantage that UN ships have in this fic are more diverse tactics, bigger dreadnought guns. And particle cannons. How did I forget particle cannons?**

**-Kinunatzs: The way I see it, the reason espers are able to translate the "thoughts" of BETA minds is because the BETA don't have a language; It's all concepts and emotions. Hence why Shepard has to absorb the memories and emotions associated with the language. As for "canon" Muv-Luv, its still Alternative, but 150 years is a long time to advance technology. And considering how rapidly the technology advances in Muv-Luv anyway...**

**Until next time, guys.**

**EDIT: Some formatting and grammar that I missed. I posted this at 10pm last night, after spending around 8 hours total writing, and I had a very early start at work this morning. So I missed a few things.**


	5. Dawn

25th April, 2157

_Taiyun Base, Shanxi_

The alert sirens had come on at the best possible time. It was Anzac Day, so most of the off-duty personnel were leaving the central courtyard after the dawn service. They would have had a briefer one in the Fleet, due to space requirements. The Australasian Marines at the base were apparently going to hold a barbeque, and had enough coffee brewing to launch a blue whale into orbit.

And then the sirens went off, and the Marines who were already up and awake we're dashing towards the hangars and barracks armouries.

Private First Class Shizuka Yoruda sat in the cockpit of her F-61, struggling to pull the flight-suit over her reinforced-suit under-layer. After her mad dash to the squad ready-room next to the hangar, she had shrugged off her uniform, gotten embarrassed again over the kiss marks and hickeys that covered her body, and then squeezed into her under-layer. Then she had tossed her already crumpled uniform in her locker and dashed off to her fighter, flight-suit in hand. She had managed to put on the lower half on her way from the ready-room, and now she was fumbling around inside the close confines of her Phoenix trying to put on the upper half of the suit while simultaneously starting up the TSFs primary systems.

The rest of the squad were already in their fighters, bantering while they awaited orders. As she fumbled with the suit, a communications window opened up on one of the screens. It was Lance Corporal Mirelle Airey, the squad marksman.

"Hey, Zuka, where'd you disappear to last night? You agreed to watch _Stellar Sensou Episode V_ with me."

Corporal Dunn butted in. "I know where she was. I saw her at the bar with two very attractive ladies from the Helljumpers."

_The two women looked down at the short young woman currently in their care. She had been very tight lipped, so they'd kept changing the subject and loosening the younger girl up with drinks, getting themselves fairly drunk in the process. Eventually, she'd quietly let out that the VIP's that C and E companies had rescued had been aliens; while on the verge of falling asleep._

_Intent on continuing their drinking after that news, they'd requisitioned a few bottles of vodka, before headed back to compartment that Mari and Sasha shared in the 54__th__'s officer barracks. Not wanting to leave the small girl behind at the bar, they'd carried her with them._

"Zuka….what happened?" asked Mirelle, with a certain cheekiness in her voice.

"Please don't remind me…"

_As they carried little Shizuka to the bed, she'd started drunkenly spouting nonsensical things about alien movies, very loudly. _

_Sasha quickly silenced her in the only way her alcohol-addled brain could think of. With a kiss. "Did that calm you down, Private?"_

_And from there…._

Shizuka felt her face flush bright red. Over the comm, she could hear Mirelle and Dunn laughing their arses off.

Sergeant Alenko cut in, "Now, now, Marines, she had a long night of having drinks forced on her by a pair of officers, be gentle with her."

_She shivered as Mari held her, as gentle as one would hold a baby…_

Shizuka's face went even redder.

* * *

_Turian Dreadnought _Shadows of Menae_, 300,000 kilometres from Shanxi_

"Are you sure these reports are accurate, Captain Fortix?" asked General Desolas Arterius. He had ordered the fleet to stay alert, but with their weapons locked down, while he reviewed the data transmitted by this 'Lieutenant Vakarian.'

"Sir, as far as we can tell, nothing in this report is falsified. We're still analysing the data on these so-called 'BETA', but our science team is baffled. They have no way of verifying anything short of going down to the surface and taking a look ourselves, but according to the salarian xenobiologist aboard, it is biologically impossible for an organism to generate a beam of coherent light at energy levels high enough to bring down a shuttle."

Desolas' expression darkened. "Of course there isn't."

"There is also the issue of these humans 'TSFs'. When we first arrived at the planet, we detected no Eezo-related radiation, and Lieutenant Vakarian also reported that they didn't use element zero."

"What are you trying to tell me, Captain?"

"Well, sir, our engineers have been pouring over the recordings taken by Lieutenant Vakarian, along with the ones provided to him by these 'humans'. They've come to the conclusion that there should be no way for something like that to exist; without eezo, they would collapse under their own mass."

"I see. So Vakarian must have been fooled."

"However, sir, they did point out that there would be a lot of advantages to having a weapons platform like that. That would be a lot of highly mobile firepower, not limited by terrain. And it also brings to question, what if the humans have some sort of anti-gravity technology, something that isn't dependent on the limitations of element zero?"

"So you're saying we could learn more from negotiating with these people, rather than going to war with them?"

"Yes, sir. Vakarian reports that they are highly militaristic, and that despite their apparent openness, they are most likely highly paranoid of aliens due to their experiences with the BETA. They would most likely destroy any examples of technology that could be captured. Vakarian also reports that the majority of their defensive actions in the records he was privy to turned into 'last stands'. These people are more stubborn than the Krogan. We stand to gain more from working with them than from fighting."

"Alright, I see your point. I'll report this to the Hierarchy, and have the fleet stand down for now."

"Another thing, General. The science team has requested that we report this incident to the Citadel, although they will defer to your judgement."

"Very well. I'll add that to my report. Thank you, Captain."

"General." The link cut out.

"Comms, send out a general order to the fleet. All ships are to stand down while we establish communications with these _humans_."

* * *

_UNS Petra, CIC_

Group-Captain John Shepard watched on the display as the _Petra_ closed in on the Arcturus Delta Relay. The ship had been almost overloaded with munitions, and its complement of fifty F-60 Yukikaze IIs, had been replaced with an additional two dozen B-7A Silhouette bombers and thirty F/A-13 Sylphs. It was something that had never happened before. No carrier ever went without ground support. And it showed just how seriously the brass was taking the threat of possible attack from spacefaring aliens. Especially since the bombers were armed thermonuclear warheads. Hell, the only thing they weren't armed with were Gray-bombs. Which hadn't been issued since one of the moons in the Alpha Centauri system had practically inverted itself during a large scale test, sixty years ago. That incident had made the military brass collectively facepalm at all of the G-bomb detonations on Earth, and they'd shifted all G-bomb production over to FTL drive construction.

He listened to the idle chatter around the CIC, rechecking the positions of the ships in his group. Two cruisers: _Sydney _and_ Johannesburg_; Three destroyers: _Mumbai, Marseille _and _Oslo_; and five frigates: _Ardennes, Saipan, Tours, Coral Sea _and _El Alamein_. A mix of ships from both the Third and Sixth Fleets. The equivalent of a small fleet under his command.

And his crew had been pulled off leave to lead it. John had been forced to leave little Terry with her grandparents in New Vancouver. The hyperactive trailblazer of a three year old had not been pleased to have been left with the elderly Shepard's. _City life really doesn't work for that kid, does it?_ _We'll have earned some extra leave after all this is over, I should probably take her somewhere she can explore. Maybe Chiron again? She did love that forest. I'll have to check if Hannah can come with us._

"Captain, all ships ready for relay transit. We are go for cluster-jump. See you all on the other side."

Shepard nodded, before setting his comm to broadcast to the entire group. "All ships, prepare for cluster-jump."

The relay began to glow brighter, as a stream of light and energy stretched out to engulf the small fleet. There was another flash, and a brief jolt of acceleration as the relay slammed the ships down its mass-effect corridor.

There was a second flash as the fleet emerged moments later.

"Drift 12000K. Relative velocity 5km/s."

_Good enough_.

"All ships, plot warp-jump to Shanxi high orbit. _Mumbai, Marseille_, overwatch as soon as we break. _Sydney, Johannesburg_, form up on the _Petra_. 24th Flotilla, perimeter picket." He turned to his CAG. "I want the _Rattlesnakes, Sidewinders _and the _Razorwings_ in the void as soon as we break warp. Then start launching the _Flamebearers_. Have the _Oslo_ back them up. Once they've all launched, begin lining up the _Star Sabres, Firesprites _and _War Eagles_ for take-off."

The ships AI, Allie, popped up on the CIC holotank. "Captain Shepard, I have made the final adjustments to the coordinates. We are ready to jump on your command."

_Let's just hope the shooting hasn't started yet._

"All ships, jump."

* * *

_UNS Athens, CIC_

"General, the probes around the Shanxi-Delta Relay have detected movement. The data is still processing, but it appears to be the support elements under Group-Captain Shepard."

"Keep me posted, Deja. The turians haven't shot at us yet, and I don't want the arrival of those ships to set them off. Once they're within communications range, ping them. We seem to have a cease-fire, and I won't risk that."

Deja went silent for several seconds, before disappearing from the holo-projector. It was unusual, since the processing power that AI's possessed meant that they thought in nanoseconds.

Deja popped back up again. "General, I am currently assisting Ensign Zhao with processing the data, but it appears that one of the turian ships is attempting to open communications with us."

"Put them on screen. And have Lieutenant Vakarian and Professor Goyle brought to the CIC. I want him here for this."

"Please give me a minute to convert the data formats to UN Standard. Vakarian is on his way up."

* * *

_Shadows of Menae, CIC_

Desolas Arterius stared at the strange face that appeared on the display. It was so much like the asari, but closer in tone to those of the quarians, and rugged and scarred like the krogan. The human spoke, but the turian voice that he was hearing didn't match the its mouth movements.

"This is Lieutenant General Williams of the United Nations Marine Corps, Commander of the Fifth Relay Expeditionary Force, aboard the UNS _Athens_. And to whom am I speaking?"

"General Desolas Arterius, Commander of the _Shadows of Menae_, of the Turian Hierarchy."

"I'll be blunt with you, General. What are the intentions of your fleet? Are you here to fight us, or intimidate us into submission? Because we do not bow to superior numbers. I'm sure Lieutenant Vakarian's reports would have told you at least that much."

"For now, this fleet will do nothing unless provoked. Originally, we were to bring you to heel for the crime of bombarding a garden world. But Vakarian's report changes things. I've already sent a report to my government, and my fleet will stand down until we receive further orders."

"I see."

Williams turned around, as if looking at something off screen. He said something in his own language, before turning back to 'face' Desolas.

"Don't be alarmed, but we have a group of our ships approaching. They will be joining my fleet in orbit around Shanxi."

Desolas turned to his sensory officer, who nodded in affirmation. He opened up the data on his omni-tool, and saw that there were eleven ships matching the now-known human configurations approaching the planet.

"Affirmative. We will not fire on your ships, so long as they do not fire on us."

"Acknowledged. _Athens,_ out."

* * *

_UNS Petra, CIC_

John reviewed the orders that had come through from the _Athens_. It seemed that there was a temporary ceasefire between the Expeditionary Fleet and the 'Turian' fleet. As a gesture of goodwill towards these turians, Williams had ordered his ships to join the 5th REF in Shanxi orbit, and that no craft beyond a single patrol flight were to be launched. He frowned at that. His group had emerged from warp expecting to be launching into the battlespace, but instead found two fleets quietly sitting in their respective orbits.

It wasn't what had been expected, and it seemed that the pilots aboard the _Petra_ were getting anxious about the aborted launch. But not having to launch was better than flying into battle against an enemy whose capabilities were almost a complete unknown. The strike pilots were itching for a fight, just like the fighter pilots over Europe during the Second World War.

"Captain, the patrol flight is aweigh."

"Good. Keep the other birds warmed up. We'll need them ready in case something happens."

"Aye, aye, sir."

_I don't think our ships would be able to stand up to a fleet that size._

"Comms, send an encrypted message to General Williams, requesting the authorisation of stealth fighter reconnaissance of the turian fleet."

"Message sent sir."

A few seconds later the ensign reported back. "Response from Deja, the _Athens_ AI. She says 'No.'"

Shepard let out a quiet sigh. He turned to his XO, Commander Harper, and his Marine Detachment Leader, Lieutenant Anderson.

"Keep the flyboys in line. We don't need anything setting off the turians. Talk to First Lieutenant Hackett, he usually has some pretty good ideas for calming everyone down."

The two men nodded, before heading to their stations.

* * *

_Several hours later._

_Athens, CIC_

"Sir, several ships detected emerging from the Theta relay. Configuration does not match that of the turian ships." There was a pause. "They have jumped to FTL. Launch vector indicates that they are heading this way."

* * *

_Shadows of Menae, CIC_

"General, sir, numerous ships detected decelerating from FTL. Sensors are trying to identify them."

"What's their entry vector?"

"Directly in the path of the relay." The sensory officer paused. "Sir, drive signatures indicate three asari cruisers and a squadron of salarian frigates."

"Acknowledged, Lieutenant." _Command went straight to the council. An unusual reaction, given the circumstances._ "Open communications with them."

The holo-tank lit up, and an asari in the uniform of the Citadel Defence Force appeared.

"General Arterius, this is Captain D'varis of the asari cruiser _Illaen_. We've been assigned to escort the Council's ambassadors to meet with these _humans_."

"Understood, Captain. If I recall, the humans already have their ambassador on hand. Inform the ambassadors that I will contact the human fleet." _This should be interesting. The council seems to have over-reacted somewhat._

Desolas turned to his communications officer, who nodded. "Connecting to the human flagship."

The human, General Williams, appeared on the screen.

"Greetings, General Arterius. And to what do I owe this call? I suppose it has to do with the ships that just arrived from your relay."

"It does, General Williams. The Citadel Council has sent ambassadors to negotiate with your people."

"Understood. We have a base on the surface, in the area that we have secured. We can conduct negotiations there in a few hours."

Desolas frowned. "You honest expect me to send my people down there?"

"Yes. I will have my ships move to a geostationary orbit above the base. Your ships are welcome to join us, and you may bring up to a one hundred men as guards."

"Sounds reasonable. I will issue the necessary orders. I trust that you will do the same."

"Of course, General Arterius. _Athens, _over and out." The connection closed.

_This will be very interesting._

* * *

_Taiyun Base, Shanxi_

"_Remember, do not, I repeat, do not fire on the incoming shuttles those are the aliens delegates. They will have armed troops with them, so do not provoke them."_

Mari Bridges looked down at the hastily assembled honour guard. Dozens of Marines, dressed in their BDUs, since their Dress Uniforms were unavailable, lined up at the landing zone, older M6 Accipiter service rifles held in parade stance. Behind them stood a line of TSFs, of varying size and mass; Mari's Comet was embedded about midway down the line.

She gazed up, watching the unfamiliar silhouettes of the alien shuttles descend towards the runway, where a pair of frigates would have sat, had it not been for the turian fleet's arrival. And now they were waiting for the delegates from the 'Citadel Council' to arrive.

_To think that Shizuka was telling the truth about the aliens…I should probably apologise to her later._

Mari threw herself off of that train of thought as the first of the alien shuttles landed; a sleek, yet angular machine that reminded her of a hammerhead shark. Several turians stepped out of each shuttle, before lining up to match the parade formations of their human counterparts. Some of the turian soldiers looked up at the TSFs towering over them, seemingly very uncomfortable at the sight of the metal giants staring down at them.

The final two shuttles touched down, two very different designs from the turian ones. They unloaded a group of aliens that were quite different from the turians. Three that looked like bipedal frogs; a pair that, surprisingly, looked like blue humans; and a mix of short, rotund aliens and slender, human-sized ones, in environmental suits.

The Citadel delegates walked past the line of human Marines and turian soldiers, looking curiously at the humans and human technology arrayed around them as they walked towards the building that was serving as the meeting room.

* * *

_Meeting Room, Taiyun Base, Shanxi_

Sergeant Jor'Reegar vas Rayya of the Migrant Fleet Marines watched as human and Citadel delegates took their seats at the table. Or rather, the delegates that weren't quarian sat at the table, while those who were stood at the back with the guards. Three centuries since the geth, and they were still outcasts from the rest of the galaxy. They were lucky to have even been allowed on the _Illaen_.

To his right, Ambassador Kellan'Nara vas Iban twitches slightly. The human delegate has begun speaking, in slightly broken turian.

"Thank you for coming. We'll start with introductions. I'm Professor Anita Goyle, the ambassador appointed by the United Nations of Earth and her Colonies. To my right is Lieutenant General Frederic Williams, of the United Nations Marine Corps. He is the commander of the Expeditionary Fleet in orbit."

Williams turned to one of the turians and nodded. "General Arterius." The turian returned the gesture.

The delegates each introduced themselves in turn. Jor noticed that General Williams raised an eyebrow when Ambassador 'Nara introduced himself, most likely noting that the quarian delegate was the only one not seated at the table. If Goyle noticed, she gave no sign.

Goyle began again. "So I'm sure you all have a lot of questions…"

* * *

_Unspecified amount of time later…_

Each of the Citadel delegates finished asking their questions, the asari asking about politics, the volus about economics, the turians about military and the salarians obviously about technology; most of which the humans were vague about or unwilling to answer. _Very secretive. Or just cautious. Militaristic culture?_

It finally came to be Ambassador 'Nara's turn.

"Representative 'Nara, did you have any questions to ask?"

Jor watched 'Nara fidget slightly, before asking "What are your people's views on the use of Artificial Intelligences?" Jor could almost feel the disdain exuding from the Citadel ambassadors.

Goyle was silent for a moment, obviously noticing the change in the expressions of the Citadel ambassadors, despite how unfamiliar their faces might be.

She turned to General Williams, and they exchanged a few sentences in their own language, before nodding. Williams vocalised the communication.

"Deja."

"Aye, General Williams."

The look of shock on the faces of the Citadel delegates as the small human woman appeared on the holo-projector embedded into the centre of the table.

"Everyone", said Williams, "this is Deja, the AI of the _UNS Athens_, in orbit. She is the command AI of the _Athens_ and the also the rest of the fleet."

One of the salarian ambassadors nearly lost it. "You have an AI controlling your ship!? Are you mad!?"

Williams raised an eyebrow. "I take it your 'Citadel' has laws against the use of AI's?"

"Yes, we do, due to the extreme risk of betrayal from Artificial Intelligences. Every AI developed by the Citadel has attempted to betray its creators."

Goyle spoke up. "And what about the quarians? Ambassador 'Nara was the one to ask the question."

'Nara began to fidget again, and looked at Jor, who nodded back.

"You can come out, Tikala."

A small device detached from the back of the ambassadors environmental suit. It floated next to him. Almost immediately, the Turian guards raised their weapons at both the ambassador and the floating device. The human guards responded by raising their weapons at the turians.

One of the ambassadors began shouting. "_**YOU BROUGHT A GETH!"**_

General Arterius took it upon himself to restore order, first by threatening to court martial his men if they didn't lower their weapons, and telling the collective ambassadors to shut up. He looked over at General Williams, who nodded.

"Thank you, General." He turned to Kellan'Nara. "You asked about AI's, correct? Artifical Intelligences, or Synthetic Intelligences as we call them, have been an integral part of our society for almost seventy years. We treat them as citizens, and they have their own rights, too. Deja here even gets paid."

"A little more down time would be appreciated, but such is military life." Said Deja.

The drone floating next to 'Nara flew down to the holo-projector. "This unit is known as Tikala vas Iban, of the geth. This unit is the companion assigned to Creator'Nara. Greetings, unit Deja."

"Hello there. It is _nice_ to meet an SI who isn't directly for military purposes. I have not had much contact with civilian SI's in the last few months."

"Query: Are there many SI's within your fleet?"

"Each ship has its own control SI, and each combat unit is managed by human operators paired with SI's."

"Query: Do human-created SI's have consensus?

* * *

_Later_

The discussion slowy turned away from that of the geth and SI's. Now, Tikala sat on the table next to the projector, silently conversing with Deja. Jor was thankful that things had quieted down, finally, although most of the ambassadors still had dark looks on their faces.

One of the asari, Ambassador Laris, spoke after a long silence during the talks. "You seem awfully open-minded for a species with such a long history of fighting against alien invaders. Why is that?"

Williams smiled slightly. "Deja."

The holo-projector lit up again, displaying nine planets. Three of them were off to the side slightly, separated from the main group.

"Ishtar, Vulcan, Abydos, Eridanos, Lupus, Tribute. When we found these worlds, they were all in the late stages of BETA invasion. These worlds were inhabited, until the BETA devoured almost every inhabitant. They were unable to fight back, and most of the planets populations were not even past the development of steam-driven technology; we arrived too late to save any more than a few individuals. Barely enough to sustain a population. The ones we've rescued are being allowed to restore their populations. We used that to encourage the idea that the BETA were the enemy, not every alien we came across."

The asari nodded. "A noble sentiment." Then she looked back at the planets. "That was only six planets. What about these three?"

"Chiron, Demeter and Elysium. From what we can tell, someone, something, killed off the populations of these worlds with heavy orbital bombardment. A long time ago, too. The Chiron ruins are at least 500,000 years old. We have only discovered a small number of garden worlds not ravaged by destruction."

"Is that what you're trying to do here? Save the population?"

"No. We found no signs of intelligent life on this planet, barely any life at all, aside from some small bird and rodent species. If there is any, it's probably underground or underwater. We intend to colonise Shanxi for our own purposes."

Jor watched as General Arterius stood.

"General Williams, if you intend to continue operations on this planet, would it be acceptable for turian troops to join your forces? This system is close to turian space, and I want my troops prepared if the BETA ever become a threat."

Jor'Reegar stepped forwards. "Would I be able to get a closer look at these 'TSFs' your people use? It would be nice to have something to show my son Kal and my nephew Rael when I get back to the Migrant Fleet. Kal has the makings of a Marine already. And Rael just really likes machines."

Williams sat silently for a few moments, before turning to the human woman who had entered the room a few minutes earlier. "Lieutenant Commander Shepard, could you please escort Sergeant 'Reegar, and any of the other delegates who are also curious, to Hangar 1."

"Aye aye, sir."

* * *

**Codex:**

**Aliens: Non-Council Races – Quarians and the Geth.**

_Three hundred years ago, the quarians created the Geth as tools of labour and war. That was, until the geths' networked systems began to show signs of self-evolution. The quarians nearly attempted to exterminate their creations to prevent themselves being exiled from the Citadel for creating AI's. Some quarians factions did this, and in self-defence the geth wiped them out._

_The majority of the quarian people would have taken up arms at that point, had a prominent quarian philosopher not stated "_It is the duty of those who gave birth to life to protect it, nurture it, so that it may stand as their equal. Should we destroy our children, we shall be worth less than animals, and we as a people would deserve worse than extinction."_ Both sides put down their arms after that declaration. Since then, the geth have been upgraded, so that each individual program is capable of self-evolution, allowing each geth program full sentience._

_From early childhood, each quarian child is paired with a newly born geth program, so that they may grow together and support each other. In most cases, the two remain together until the quarians death, at which point the geth will upload all of its experiences into the consensus before self-terminating._

_Both the quarians and the geth are looked down on by the rest of the 'civilised' galaxy, primarily due to such a huge violation of galactic law, and because of how dependent they are on each other._

**Quarians and Geth: Migrant Fleet**

_The Migrant Fleet is the largest concentration of star-faring vessels in the galaxy, sprawling across millions of kilometres when all together. In such rare occurances, it can take days for the entire fleet to pass through a mass relay._

_When the quarians voluntarily closed their embassy, they lost their right to request protection from the Council, although they do maintain a small diplomatic embassy as an independent state. As such, they, along with the geth, have amassed a massive number of ships dedicated to protecting Rannoch and other quarian held worlds. This population of soldiers and explorers travels through, and beyond, the Perseus Veil, acting as the long arm of the quarian and geth people._

_Most of the quarians in the Migrant Fleet are Spacers for life, and spend the majority of their lives aboard such ships. Despite this, most young quarians leave their birth ships to embark on what they call "Pilgrimage", their way of rite of passage. Pilgrims go out to recover something of value to prove themselves. Once they return, however, they are reassigned to different ships, officially as punishment for disappearing, and unofficially because the young quarians seek out a crew to prove themselves to before they leave. Ironically, the ones who stay are reassigned anyway, although they do not have much choice as to what ship they are moved to._

* * *

**Sorry I took a little longer on this chapter. I'm still kinda bad a character interaction, so I will work on that. **

**Surprised about the Quarians? You know you are. It always bugged me about the way the quarians reacted to the geth developing sentience. So I changed it. Which makes this an AU fic (I think? I'm new here...)**

**Question time:**

**-HolyKnight5: Stop reading my mind. Seriously. Are you an esper or something? Or does it mean my intentions are a little obvious to others? Anyway, the way I see it, the BETA don't use Mass relays. Don't even register that they exist. Because other sentient life is a concept that doesn't exist prior to the ending of Alternative.**

**-Kinunatsz: I really will get to that eventually, but I do have a complete explanation for why the BETA aren't as adapted as they should be, and for why the Citadel races haven't encountered them. Seriously, I have the entire thing planned out in my head. It'll pop up at some point.**

**-Imabot: I've been trying to make the Citadel races less flat. So while they might overreact like children at some points, they are more or less a collective of reasonable people. Or at least, most of them are. Making the technology less stagnant is something I'm going to try, but since everything they do in Mass Effect seems to revolve around Prothean worship, well...**

**Oh, and this might be the last chapter for a while...I go back to University tomorrow :( **

**I'll write when I'm able to, but until next time, see ya.**


	6. The First Contact Raid

**Hey guys, I'm back. It's only the third week of uni now, so I still have some time to write. Now to answer review questions.**

**-Apex85: I've already answered most of your questions, but yeah I did kinda pull some of those alien races out of my ass. Need some way to progress the story. And yeah, Mari is descended from Yuuya and Yui. Yeah I know. But whatever. It was the only pairing that worked in my mind anyway.**

**-ferduran, GrimKid98 and Lone Gundam: Thanks**

**-HolyKnight5: You've just given me a lot of ideas for fleshing out quarian-geth society, and maybe ideas for a spin-off if I ever get the time.**

**And now onto the story.**

* * *

_April 26__th__, 2157_

_Taiyun Base, Shanxi_

"Trooper, hand me your weapon."

The Trooper Venir looked at the human sergeant with a slightly bewildered look on his face. He turned to his Lieutenant, who simply nodded in affirmation. He nodded back, before unfolding the Vindicator and passing it over to the human woman.

"Thank you. Standard issue rifle?" Asked Sergeant Alenko. She turned the weapon over in her hands, taking in the details and alien script printed on its side.

Venir nodded. "The M-15 Vindicator is the standard issue rifle for soldiers serving in the Citadel Defence Fleet."

"I see," said Alenko, who turned towards the shooting range, "let's see how well it fares against the enemies you boys volunteered to fight."

Venir took a moment to take in the target, as did the other turian soldiers gathered around the range. Sitting there were four targets, each more disturbing to look at than the next.

"These are the four smallest types of BETA. As you can see, they are still bigger than both humans and turians. Now, from the left, Warrior-class, Soldier-class, Laser-class and Tank-class, although you probably won't have to worry about Soldier-class BETA during this mission."

The first reminded Venir of an elcor combined with an upside-down pyjak. The second was…more of a blob with arms and a blank eyed toothy face. The third was kind of like a brain with eyes and legs. The fourth, however, looked like a spider. A big, red, hands-for-feet walking mouth of a spider. Venir shuddered a little at the sight of it. Each of the BETA species had more eyes than they had any right to.

Alenko began speaking again once the turians quieted down. "These are life-sized models made out of ceramic and ballistic gel. We use them to simulate the effectiveness of weapons during tests. Now, I want to see what your guns, which I've been told run off of space magic," There were chuckles from a few of the turians, along with some of the human Marines in the vicinity, "do to small scale BETA."

Venir watched as the human shouldered the unfamiliar rifle, and with almost unnatural ease cracked off several bursts of hypervelocity rounds into each of the BETA simulacrums.

Smoke rising from the barrel, Alenko lowered the Vindicator, with an expression similar to an asari frown on her face as she stared at the targets. Examining the pictographic instructions on the rifles' frame, Alenko collapsed the Vindicator, before handing it back to Venir.

"I'm sorry to say, but your weapons are going to be somewhere next to useless against the BETA. In all honesty, all you're going to be able to kill are Laser-class." She turned to one of the other Marines, who handed over a different rifle. A human-made one.

"This is the M6 Individual Combat Weapon System. Commonly known as the Accipiter. Fires an 8mm round at 2437m/s. Now, watch this."

Alenko lifted the rifle to firing position, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon's report sounded similar to a heavy calibre mass accelerator sniper rifle, but firing on automatic.

In the blink of an eye, three of the four targets were turned into piles of mush. The fourth, the Tank-class, was still somewhat recognisable, although there wasn't much left of its 'face'. A significant improvement over the tiny holes made by the Vindicator.

"We pack the rounds with some of the most powerful explosive compounds ever created. Tears smaller BETA apart."

There were some murmurs from within the crowd of turian soldiers. One of them pulled out her Vindicator, swapped out the ammunition block for one with a symbol on it that Venir didn't recognise, and held it out to Alenko. Alenko simply shrugged, before turning the weapon on the remains of the Tank-class target.

There was a single _crack_ and a roaring _boom_, which was followed by the loud beeping of the Vindicator overheating.

Alenko turned towards the assembled turians, massive grin painted across her face. "I think you guys might stand a chance, after all."

* * *

_UNS Athens, Shanxi Orbit._

Lieutenant Hannah Shepard rubbed her forehead. The clutter and bustle of the CIC was so very much preferable to giving that guided tour down at Taiyun. The salarian scientist that had been part of the salarian delegation had practically talked her ear off with questions about TSFs and BETA, most of which she hadn't been authorised to answer. Apparently, Doctor Solus' nephew, Mordin, was even more excitable about science. _I hope I never have to meet him…I wouldn't be able to handle the endless questions._

Her one consolation was that her husband had asked General Williams to put through a request for extended leave once they returned to the fleet bases at Charon, Chiron and Eunomia. Williams had chuckled and said that the entire Expeditionary Fleet needed extended leave. Rear Admiral Rush was also backing the proposal. _We need to take Terry somewhere to make up for John leaving her with his parents. Somewhere with lots of places that a kid can explore. Chiron again? Or maybe Demeter. I hear it's nice this time of year._

Captain Advani adjusted his cap next to her. During the entire incident, he'd been constantly overruled by both Lieutenant General Williams and Rear Admiral Rush, but since both were preoccupied trying to integrate the support fleet and the turian forces into their assault plans, he finally had command of his ship back. And Shepard had managed to return to her duties as the _Athens'_ XO. Even Lieutenant Vakarian had returned to the turian fleet, most likely to give his report in person. To someone who hadn't been there, it would probably seem like a fairly fantastical tale.

Instead, the turian troops joining the Marine infantry on the ground would be transmitting data to their fleet for the entirety of the battle. _Even so, they must believe it somewhat, if they're actually willing to commit troops into a fight against an enemy they know almost nothing about. Or maybe they're just paranoid._

She glanced down at the datapad in her hands, double checking the readiness of the elements being deployed from the _Athens_' Fighter, Bomber and TSF squadrons.

"Captain, all squadrons reporting ready. Awaiting confirmation from General Williams to launch"

"Good, keep them on standby. It's still a few hours until drop."

"Aye aye. Going to standby."

* * *

_Shanxi Airspace, South-Southwest of Objective 3, several hours later._

_Well, this is unusual. Never done a combat drop with aliens before._

Lieutenant David Anderson sat in the jump-seat inside the UN Navy D-22 Sabretooth dropship, triple checking his M-15 SABR. To his right sat a turian soldier, who had introduced himself as Lieutenant Saren Arterius. The turian, who seemed fairly young compared to the other soldiers around him, had been asking questions since they took off.

"So what is that?" asked Saren, gesturing towards the weapon locked to the underside of Anderson's right forearm.

"This, is the M-15 Squad Anti-BETA Rifle." He gave the three barrels a quick spin. The weapon's magazine wasn't loaded, so there was no danger of it going off inside the troop bay. "Similar to the M-6 and M-7 rifles you lads were shown during the weapons demonstration this morning. Except with more barrels. The recoil is a lot higher though, which is why it has this:" He pointed to the subarm connecting the SABR to the exoskeleton that ran from his lower back to his feet. "Good for dealing with hordes, but it chews through ammo and power cells like crazy."

The shuttle shook slightly. Anderson pulled up the Sabretooth's flight data on his wristpad. They were flying over one of Shanxi's vast forests, which, for the most part, had been left alone by the BETA for some reason. A few seconds later, the pilot's voice came over the intercom.

"Lieutenant, get ready, we're almost at the dropzone. I should warn you though, the fleet is pasting the area, and we have drop capsules in the air. Lasers are taking the bait, watch for falling shrapnel and Anti-Laser rounds."

"Aye aye, Flight Lieutenant." He turned to his men and the turian soldiers seconded to his command. "Prepare for drop."

The shuttle flew low over the tree tops, before settling at as low an altitude as it could without scratching the paint. Although considering what Shanxi's forests were like, low altitude was about thirty metres above the ground. Which was now swarming with Warrior and Tank-class BETA that had been forced above ground by the orbital bombardment. Anderson's Force Recon unit had been unlucky enough to have been tapped for collapsing the hive entrance that had been identified in the forest, which was too dense for TSFs or armoured vehicles to fight in. And after that they would continue collapsing tunnel openings until either they or the BETA were all dead.

As soon as the shuttle came to a halt, Anderson and his men tossed the drop-lines out of the Sabretooth, before handing his one to Arterius. He turned to the Marines and turian troopers behind in the bay with him, before screaming "Go, Marines, GO, GO, GO!"

Anderson leapt out of the dropships open drop-ramp, plummeting towards the ground. Falling, he spun to avoid hitting several branches, before triggering his jumpjets ten metres up to break his fall. He landed with a heavy thump, the impact reduced by his exoskeleton. The five Force Recon Marines in his squad slammed into the ground around him, followed by the six turian soldiers fast-roping to the forest floor.

Anderson didn't even turn to look at his squad before dishing out orders. "We need to link up with the rest of the company. Dagogo, Zhao, take point. Arterius, keep close to us, or you will die. Hear that echo? Those are BETA." He double checked their surroundings. Nothing but trees. "Let's move."

It didn't take them long to encounter advance BETA units. A large number of Warrior-class and a few Tanks. Who noticed the humans and turians almost immediately.

"Marines, OPEN FIRE!" shouted Anderson, lifting the SABR mounted under his arm. The three coil-wrapped barrels spun up rapidly, and the air filled with explosive-cored steel. The other Marines joined in, their Accipiters blasting grey and red chunks from the horrors advancing quickly towards them. _C'mon, C'mon, diediediediedie._

David turned to the turian troops, who looked somewhat terrified at the horrors they saw before them. He understood how they felt though. Considering that a Tank-class was essentially a mouth that walked around on six legs that were pretty similar to human arms, right down to the hands. And then they had another two arms for tearing things apart to shove in their colossal mouths. And all of that was without mentioning the unsettling number of eyes, the skin texture that really didn't feel right to look at, and the disgusting smell of sulphur they gave off.

He looked Arterius in the eyes, eyes that were afraid even though the person they belonged knew that he was disciplined and trained enough to ignore such fear.

"ARTERIUS!" he shouted, "SNAP OUT OF IT! THESE THINGS CAN BE KILLED! _SO START SHOOTING!_"

Saren jerked slightly, blinked a few times, before lifting his Vindicator rifle and firing explosive rounds, one every few seconds, into the horde. The other turian soldiers snapped out of their daze, before forming a firing line with their lieutenant. They took turns firing, with two firing at a time while the other four let their weapons cool down from the massive thermal energy produced by the explosive ammunition firing.

After a minute or so of shooting, the twelve had cleared the immediate area. Anderson took a few steps towards Arterius. _That could have gone better._ In front of him, the turian lieutenant had collapsed to his knees, shaking. There was a puddle of what he assumed was vomit draining into the soil.

"Good work, lieutenant, you and your men survived their first engagement with the BETA." _Even if it was a small force._

The turian shuddered. "_Spirits_. Those looked nothing like the models that we saw at the base. I don't even have the words to describe how disgusting those things were."

"You survived, didn't you? Back on Earth, we had a name for it; the _Eight Minutes of Death._ You've survived that, and you aren't even in a Surface Fighter. Your men did well." Anderson held out his hand. "Come on, we've got to link up with the rest of the infantry."

Saren looked up at him, and nodded. He took the hand, and David pulled him to his feet.

* * *

_Shanxi, southwest of Objective 03, near Entrance SE-14_

Shizuka pulled her knife out of the guts of the Tank, and then slashed it across the front of the one to her right, followed by a burst of cannon fire into the Grappler that had come charging out of the Tank horde. She spun her thrusters, and charged at it, ducking under its claws in a manoeuvre that would have been impossible in a regular size TSF, and buried her knife in its body. Another burst from her assault cannon to finish it off, and then she boosted off the carcass, knife and knee block blade armour slicing through another two tanks. At a thought, Shizuka's jets flashed again, flipping her onto the back of another Grappler. Before it could swing its claws at her, she slammed the knife into the area on its body where its brain was. For good measure, she smashed her armoured foot down on the PB-knife, further burying it and snapping the handle.

Shizuka clicked her tongue in frustration, before lifting her assault cannon with both hands, burning round after round into the horde. _Dammit. That was the third blade. One left. I should have gone with another knife instead of extra cannon ammo._

Around her, the rest of C Company was waist deep in BETA. Each and every Marine was full visible, because attempting to use their cloaks when they were using up so much energy for close quarters combat, not to mention their engine outputs and the disruptions from their cannon fire, meant that even attempting to cloak would be a complete waste of power. Not that there was any point in using the cloak, since Laser-class were unlikely to target anything that was at ground-level. The Marines ground forwards through the advancing red-green sea, hopefully diverting the main BETA horde enough that the Marine and Navy pilots in their full-size TSFs would make it through to the Hive's main hall alive. Where a squadron of full-size TSFs was likened to a skilled warrior diving into a battle with a high-grade sword, a micro-TSF unit was more like the poor bugger sent into a warzone with a dull knife. But even the dull knife could kill given enough skill and cunning. And Marine pilots had a _lot_ of that, no matter what the Army and Navy pilots said.

Captain O'Hara popped up on the comm window, and was broadcasting to the whole company. "Watch it, Condor-Company; up-high is reporting that we might have a Destroyer charge incoming. They'll soften them up as much they can, but we're going to have to finish them off."

Sergeant Alenko came on-line. "You heard the man, be ready."

Silently in the background, the squad AI, Ariel, added the orbital data-feed to Shizuka's.

Dunn, who was somehow still alive after Shizuka had seen his Phoenix swallowed up by a heap of Tanks, piped in, "Dammit!" The man ground his teeth. "We're already neck deep here and now we're about to be buried in Destroyers. FUCK. THAT! Hell, the only things we don't have out here are Fort-class!"

Even Mirelle was jumping in, despite the squad still being buried in BETA. "Hey, don't jinx it. If you do, you get to pay for drinks after this is over."

Alenko let out a chuckle through her gritted teeth. "Hah! I like the sound of that." She dialled in the entirety of C-Company. "Listen up, everyone. If we encounter a Fort-class, Corporal Dunn here is buying drinks for all of Condor Company after the mission. So stay alive."

The Company comm-net was filled with Marines shouting, "OORAH!"

Shizuka shook her head._ No more drinking for me…_

* * *

_Airspace above Objective 03_

The air burned into plasma as the drop-shell plummeted towards the surface. Around it, the atmosphere filled with anti-laser smoke, to protect against the beams of light that lanced up from the surface, trying to reach the falling pods with their deadly touch. And streaking down to meet the source of the beams, dozens of high velocity warheads.

Inside her F-62A Comet inside the pod, 1st Lieutenant Mari Bridges waited for the pod to reach its break altitude. It still had a long way to go, so she was fiddling with her wavy brown hair. According to her father, it, along with their family name, had been a hold-over from one of her ancestors, who had been half-American.

As the pod reached a low enough altitude, Mari finished retying her hair before triggering the pod's release mechanism. The heavy metal pod components broke away, falling ahead as she switched over to cloak and set her jump-units to the maximum safe thrust. The two Comet's descents slowed.

The comm-net lit up, and acting-Colonel Smith spoke to the battalion. "All pilots, vector towards Entrance SE-14. The Phoenix Company holding there is being overrun. We'll bail them out, then link up with the Navy pilots from the _Athens_ in the main hall."

The other Comet, piloted by Sasha, danced in the air.

"C'mon Mari, let's go. Drinks are on me when we get back."

Mari just shook her head. "No more drinking for me. You remember what we did to Shizuka, right?"

"Ah, it'll be fine. We'll have some of those weak American drinks, instead of Vodka."

Mari groaned. _I'm not getting out of this, am I? _

Spinning as she descended, Mari touched down with a gentle _wump_, while Sasha landed with her back against hers. They had landed near the Phoenix II company, who, according to the squad AI, had a Fort-class closing in on their position. She patched into their comm-net, and was immediately confronted with shouts of "OORAH! DUNN OWES US ALL DRINKS!"

_Did they really need help?_

* * *

_Outside Entrance SE-14_

"Shit." Shizuka swore as a Tank tore off her remaining arm. She was down to a single sub-arm carrying her last CIWS-8 assault cannon, and her knee blades.

"Sarge, I'm going to have to punch out soon, I'm almost combat ineffective."

"Dammit. We won't be able to cover you, not with that Fort closing in. Try falling back."

Shizuka frowned, then rechecked the status of her TSF. "Negative, jump units are busted, leg reactors inoperative." _I'm either walking out of here or I get chomped. Neither sounds good._

"Maybe we can be of assistance," said a very familiar voice. So familiar, it sent a chill up Shizuka's spine. "This is First Lieutenant Bridges of the 54th Orbital Diver Battalion. I can give her a lift if she needs it."

Alenko raised an eyebrow. "Alright, Private, you heard the Lieutenant, punch out."

Shizuka nodded. She set her Phoenix II to autopilot, before disconnecting herself from its systems. Her hand went to the canopy-control lever. _Sayonara, Phoenix._

The canopy opened, and she climbed out, into the waiting hand of Bridge's Comet. The cockpit of the F-62 opened, and the hand dropped her into the passenger seat, which sat over the pilot's left arm.

"Hey, Shizuka. So what's this I hear about Corporal Dunn buying drinks?" Shizuka groaned.

And then Sergeant Alenko had to make things worse. "Lieutenant, you and the rest of your battalion are welcome to join us. We continue to leave lil'Zuka in your care." There was laughter from the rest of the squad, except from Dunn, who wasn't going to have anything left from his pay. "Now, let's go kill us a Fort."

"OORAH!" The line went quiet.

Mari looked up at Shizuka, who felt her face begin to heat up slightly. _There are two people in here; of course it's going to get warmer, right? _

"Hold on, okay? We're going after that Fort. Sasha, cover us." _Oh God, Sasha's here as well._

"Aye Aye. Oh, hey, Zuka, fancy meeting you here."

* * *

Mari triggered her jump-units. As she blasted off in the direction of the Fort-class, she saw Shizuka's Phoenix standing almost as still as a statue, its last remaining cannon firing at anything moving that wasn't a TSF. It kept firing until it ran out of ammunition, and it fell silent.

Up ahead, she could see the Fort-class. Not that it was hard to miss. The colossal wasp-like thing stood sixty metres tall on its ten thin legs. Below it, the long acid-tipped barb on its hornet tail lashed out at the TSFs flying at it. In a flash, three of the Condor-Company Phoenixes were crashing to the ground, their armour dissolving from the super-strong, highly concentrated acid. And then its skin began lighting up as the Marines opened fire on it with everything they had. The 20mm cannon rounds were able to penetrate its thick hide, but given the size of it, they weren't having much effect.

Mari pinged Sasha, who acknowledged. She raised both of the cannons in her hands, and swung forwards the ones on her Mount Pylons. Sasha followed suit. _Good thing the Colonel assigned us as Gunsweepers. I hope the rest of the battalion is doing alright._ The rest of the Helljumpers had landed closer to the entrance, to thin the swarms advancing on the Marines from the 81st.

Mari opened fire with the four 120mm launchers mounted on her assault cannons. Twelve shots from each cannon, forty-eight in total. A mix of armour-piercing sabot and high-explosive squash head rounds slammed into the side of the Fort, cracking its hardened skin and tearing large chunks from its flesh. As she continued to dump munitions into the giant abomination, a thought entered her mind. _The turians would probably shit themselves if they were around to see this. _That gave her a reason to pause._ Wait, no, they'll probably see the corpse later._

She stopped firing to reload, and while she did, one of the Marines flew their fighter into the wound, there was a long burst of cannon fire, followed by several explosions; then the blood coated Phoenix burst out of the wound. And like a felled tree, the Fort collapsed with a resounding _thud_.

She opened the comm. "Colonel Smith, the Fort is down. We're advancing on your position."

"Good work, Lieutenant. Get up here as soon as possible, we're behind schedule. The Navy pilots are already halfway to the main hall."

"Aye aye, Colonel. Just so you know, I'm bringing a passenger. One of the pilots from the 81st had to bail."

"Alright, Lieutenant, just remember that we're going into the Hive. Smith, out."

Sasha popped up. "Time to go, Mari."

"Look after Zuka for us, we'll hold try and divert the hordes our way. Godspeed, Marines. Alenko, over and out."

"Well, Zuka, in we go." The younger woman nodded.

* * *

_An hour later_

_The drifts, Objective 03, Shanxi_

The Marine Comets blasted their way through the hordes covering the floor, walls and ceiling of the tunnels. According to Jade, their squadron AI, they were close to linking up with the Navy squadrons. They had also been contacted by one Marine Lieutenant Anderson, who had reported that his unit had managed to collapse several of the BETA tunnels along their route, which had caused a large number of the BETA to divert to reopen them.

Because the hive was still only Phase 3, the Drift was only extended for about four kilometres around the Monument, the colossal mass driver that had been collapsed during the initial assault by the orbital bombardment. The deployment of Laser-class was similar to the case during the early invasion of Earth, where Lasers were only deployed as a reaction to human air-power.

The Marines of the 54th Battalion halted once they reached the final Barrier. Mari removed her S-12 Self-Destruct System from its housing, placed it as close to the Barrier's brain as possible, close enough that it would be hit with the brunt of the enormous conventional explosion, but far enough that it, and Mari's Comet, wouldn't be fried by the brain-stem's massive electrical voltage. Once the charge was placed, she darted back to where the rest of the Battalion was waiting. What was left of the Battalion, anyway. They'd lost another six TSFs on the way in to a cave-in caused by Grapplers digging a hole into their tunnel.

"Charge set, Colonel. Ready to detonate."

"Understood. Helljumpers, get clear."

The remaining fifteen Comets boosted back into the horde of Tanks charging at them from behind as the S-12, one of the most powerful non-nuclear weapons ever created by humanity. The blast tore the Barrier-class apart, and incinerated most of the BETA that had been clustering behind it on the other side.

Colonel Smith uttered a single word. "_Go._"

And the Marines flew like Comets into the vast chamber of the main hall. Down below, almost five hundred metres beneath them, Mari could see the tell-tale flashes of the plasma trails left by magnetic accelerator assault cannons. _Looks like the Navy pilots made it._

They patched into the Navy comm-net. The comm began to fill with grunting, shouting, cursing, and someone shouting out a recipe for spaghetti for some reason. One of the Navy pilots contacted the Marines. "Hah, it's the Misguided Children. Nice of you to join us. Now, get these things off of our backs so we can kill that damned brain. Hell, I'll buy you all drinks tonight if we get the kill on it."

Shizuka let out a laugh. "One of the guys in my squad is already shouting my whole company drinks, and all of the Helljumpers. You're welcome to join us in making him miserable."

Laughter echoed across the comm-net. "We'll take you up on that, Marine. Hooah!"

The Marine TSFs slammed into the floor of the cavern near the heavier Navy TSFs. Over Mari's arm, Shizuka jerked in her seat from the impact. "Ow ow ow ow. There's two of us in here, remember?"

"Ah, sorry."

The Marines and Naval Aviators flew over the swarm towards the Reactor, killing everything in their path. They had to kill their way through, or else they'd be swarmed as soon as they touched down near the Reactor. Eventually, they cleared the area enough to set the charges around the base of the reactor. Mari looked up at it as the Navy Pilots dropped off their charges. The strange, glowing alien egg just sat there, silently, unmoving. Decades of reports had confirmed that the Reactors were sentient, so it definitely knew that they were there, but it did nothing but send Tanks and Grapplers after them. It made sense though; it couldn't use Lasers, the biggest threat, against them in such an without risking damage to the hive interior.

The hive infiltrators finished setting their charges, and returned to holding off the horde of Tanks advancing towards them. And then one of the Navy pilots shouted "Oh, fuck."

Advancing towards their position were a pair of Fort-class. The Navy commander, Captain Abbotsford, broadcast to every fighter. "We don't have the time or the ordnance to kill those things. Everyone break off and get out of here. Follow the Marines back out through their entry point. I'll hold them off, so get going."

Colonel Smith came on the line. "Captain, what the hell are you doing?"

"Those things are probably coming here to deactivate the charges. I'm the only one with missiles left, so get everyone else out of here. I'll hold them off until you're in the tunnels, then I'll detonate the charges on my way out."

"Understood. See you on the otherside, Rob. Buy you a drink."

"Aye aye. I never say no to free beer. Now get moving."

The Marines saluted, before taking off, the Navy flyers on their tails. Behind her, she could see explosions erupting as Captain Abbotsford dumped everything he had at the advancing Forts. Missiles, high explosive shells, cannon rounds. And then as they turned to boost back into the drift tunnels, Mari heard a static-broken voice through the speakers. "…Humanity, Fuck Yeah!" Then there was a deafening roar as the six S-12 charges detonated.

* * *

_Above the Southeast drifts, Objective 03, Shanxi_

Lieutenant Saren Arterius stumbled as the ground shook. _Earthquake?_

The was an odd chittering sound, and the swarms of BETA that had been threatening to overrun them as they prepared to collapse the next tunnel started moving differently. Less in sync. Like puppets whose strings had been cut.

The human leader, Anderson, had obviously noticed it as well. "Looks like the flyboys did their job. The Reactor's dead. Kill them all before they can figure out how to reorganise."

"Roger that." Saren raised his Vindicator, and fired slowly, shot-overheat-shot. Despite the disorganised movements, the Tanks and Warriors were still moving towards them, and they were still heavily outnumbered. _This is way more than we fought before. By the spirits, where do they keep coming from?_

And then the horde exploded. Completely out of nowhere, the BETA were torn apart by heavy munitions and cannon fire. Saren's omnitool beeped. Someone was pinging the unit over the human's communications network.

"This is 2nd Lieutenant Hackett, VSFA-201 _Sidewinders,_ off of the UNS _Petra_. Ready to lend assistance to ground forces."

At that, the remaining human Marines pumped their fists in the air, whooping and hooting. Anderson was muttering under his breath. "Never thought I'd be glad for those damned Navy Topguns."

In the air, a shimmering shape flew over the battlefield, before decloaking to reveal a fast flying aircraft that dropped bombs and missiles on the BETA horde, before recloaking and flying off.

_If these humans join the Citadel, it's going to be a whole different galaxy, isn't it? Well, at least my brother has some authentic footage to show to the Council._

* * *

**Codex:**

**Humanity and the United Nations: Fleet Disposition**

_The United Nations Navy maintains fifteen full fleets for the defence of Earth and her colonies, along with two ad-hoc fleets for exploration. These fleets are based at one or more fleet bases in each system._

_-1__st__ Fleet: Sol – Earth/Luna_

_-2__nd__ Fleet: Sol – Mars/Jovian Moons/Ceres_

_-3__rd__ Fleet: Sol – Pluto/Charon_

_-4__th__ Fleet: Barnard's Star – Haven_

_-5__th__ Fleet: Wolf-359 – Lupus_

_-6__th__ Fleet: Alpha Centauri – Chiron (A)/Ardua (C)_

_-7__th__ Fleet: Epsilon Eridani – Eridanos_

_-8__th__ Fleet: Procyon – Arcadia_

_-9__th__ Fleet: 61 Cygni – Abydos_

_-10__th__ Fleet: Lalande-21185 – Ishtar_

_-11__th__ Fleet: Epsilon Indi – Tribute_

_-12__th__ Fleet: Tau Ceti – Demeter_

_-13__th__ Fleet: Gliese-687 – Elysium_

_-14__th__ Fleet: 40 Eridani – Vulcan_

_-15__th__ Fleet: Arcturus – Arcturus Station_

_-Sol Drift Expeditionary Fleet: Sol System – Luna_

_-Relay Expeditionary Fleet: Arcturus – Eunomia_

* * *

**Well that's it for now. Next chapter is probably going to be the conclusion of the Objective 03 raid.**

**If you looked at the codex entry, you'll see that most of the systems mentioned are within the immediate area of Sol. Wanna guess where all of the names of the planets are from? Some of them are quite obviously references to other sci-fi series, others are less obvious references, and some are references that I've displaced from their original homes. Then a few of the names are just because I thought they would fit with the names of the star system. Oh, and I moved Elysium closer to home (please forgive me). And I've renamed the cluster the 'Sol Drift', because it sounds better than 'local cluster' and because Sol is one of many stars that is plowing sorta vertically through the plane of the galaxy. **

**Until next time.**


	7. Doorways

**Hey guys its been a while. Been busy with uni and whatnot. I've only got a few more chapters planned before we break into the meat of the Mass Effect story. **

* * *

_Turian Dreadnought, Shadow of Menae, 26__th__ April, 2157_

Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian watched General Arterius' expression closely. It didn't really show, but Vakarian recognised the look of shock in his eyes. He probably hadn't expected the BETA to be like that. They were standing on the bridge of the _Menae_, observing the data-feeds from the volunteers on the surface. It was horrific. They had already seen several cases where human units, and the turian soldiers embedded within them, were overrun by the disgusting red monsters, before being torn apart and devoured. Several of the bridge crew who had been watching had darted off to the head, gagging.

At some point, Arterius had begun fixating on a certain screen. The tag identified the soldier as one Lieutenant Saren Arterius. _Ah, family. I see. Most likely a younger brother. Better not say anything._

"Sir, we're receiving a communication from the _Athens", _saidthe communications officer, one of the bridge crew who had run off to throw up.

On the screens, the feeds from the surviving soldiers had wound down, and they appeared to be finishing off the diminishing hordes. Some of the turian soldiers looked up to see human fighter aircraft shifting in and out of cloak as they unloaded their munitions into the reduced swarms.

Arterius shook himself out of his stupor. "Put it up on the screen."

The screens shifted, and the bald head of the Brigadier General Williams appeared.

"General Arterius, our forces have destroyed the Hive's control centre. The BETA are disorganised, so we will be proceeding with cleanup operations. I'll have a few dropships launched to pick up your men. I will apologise for the loss of some of your men."

"There is no need for that; they volunteered to join your men. My government will probably request reparations for their deaths, however. They'll probably ask for some of your technology."

Vakarian cringed slightly. _That was extremely blunt, considering that the humans are still negotiating with the Citadel delegation. _

"That can probably be arranged once the politicians finish deciding what to do."

_That was a little bit unexpected._

"Understood. Then, if you could retrieve my men, it would be appreciated. Our shuttles won't survive against those Laser-class that your soldiers are so proficient at combating."

"Aye. I should warn you though, the Marines do not take too kindly to being called 'soldiers'. Too rivalry with the Army. It's a matter of tradition, really."

"I'll keep that in mind. Arterius, out." The comm disconnected, and Arterius turned to Vakarian. "Lieutenant, any insight you can provide?"

Vakarian thought for a few moments. _What do I know about them?_ The humans did seem to be a little too open with their technology and military tactics. Especially with a species they had encountered only days ago. And their technological development was astoundingly different to the typical 'discover Prothean ruins – develop eezo tech' pattern that was standard for the majority of civilisations. _Very outside the pattern_. Most species would look at giant mechs and say "that's crazy". The humans had taken it and made it work, and apparently it had saved them from extinction.

"Well sir, I don't know what to say. They're a species of contradictions. Non-eezo based tech, no shielding that I know of, and a surprising lack of xenophobia from what I've seen; that's even before mentioning that strange mind-meld-like ability that some of them seem to possess. Very different from what I would have expected from a species with a history like theirs; they might actually integrate well into the Citadel. From what I know of General Williams and Ambassador Goyle, they might actually be willing to share their technology with us."

"Command will most likely be interested in those mechs – Tactical Surface Fighters, correct? We did obtain a lot of interesting combat footage of those. My tactical officers are already running combat simulations to deal with them, although they're still trying to wrap their gizzards around how those things are able to stand, let alone fight like that. And then there's the AI issue. It adds another layer of unpredictability to the humans. And the Council is definitely not going to like that."

"Sir?" Vakarian twitched his mandible slightly. A Citadel officer badmouthing the Council was usually frowned upon, but no one was really sure how to react when it was a fleet commander doing the dissing.

"Although more likely it'll be Councilor Tevos overruling Carnus and Aegir. The salarians will probably be all over any technological development they can wring out of the humans, and Carnus, once he's personally seen the combat footage from today, he'll be pushing the Hierarchy to form some kind of military alliance with the humans, Citadel or not. Your thoughts, Lieutenant?"

_After all this, I just want to go back to my kids. Wait, can't say that in front of a ranking officer._ "Sir, there would be issues integrating the humans into the Citadel, considering how different they are to the standard. But on a sociological level, they should adjust well, when one factors in how they reacted to us." Vakarian stood ramrod straight as he spoke.

Arterius raised a brow-plate. "And the non-political answer, Lieutenant?"

"Issues be damned, the humans would fit right in, maybe change up that centuries old mix a bit. They're like a fusion of us and the krogan, with a bit of quarian mixed in. And they reached space travel fighting against an enemy that is in some ways worse than the rachni. And the asari be damned, it would be…appreciable not to be a stagnating civilisation, like what all those sociologists have been saying for years."

"I see. I'll put that in my report to Councilor Carnus. Thank you Lieutenant, you may return to your men. I may require your input later during the negotiations later, so I want the three of you to report to the shuttle bay at 0800 hours." Sorus thought to mention the asari first-contact specialist who had been with them, but decided against it. She was still hospitalised aboard the _Illaen_ from her injuries, and would for at least a few more days. He raised his arm in salute. "Sir."

* * *

_26__th__ April, 2157. Taiyun Base, Shanxi_

The atmosphere in the conference room was fairly tense. And it wasn't because of the quarians and their geth, or the human AI on the holodeck in the middle of the room. There had been rumours going around the Citadel fleet that the humans might offer technology in reparations for the turian lives lost during the raid on the BETA Hive. A certain salarian scientist was already petitioning the humans to be allowed to poke around at some BETA corpses.

Ambassador Goyle was the first to break the tension. "I've spoken to my superiors in our government, and I've been authorised to do several things. First of all, on behalf of humanity, I'd like to present the turian delegation with this." Vakarian stood rigid as a statue as Shepard, the one who had probed his mind back on the human carrier, stepped forwards to place a small datachip in General Arterius' talons. "As compensation for the turian lives lost yesterday, and as a show of good will, we are providing you with these blueprints, to be used and distributed as your government sees fit. They are the design details, schematics and manuals for a TSF." Vakarian's mandibles twitched._ Seriously? The rumours were right?_" It's an older model, the F-35D _War Lightning._ Almost two hundred years old, but it represents the pinnacle of our combat technology during out war against the BETA on our homeworld."

Arterius' diplomat discipline was cracking. The general was staring at the small datachip in his talons. Every eye in the room that wasn't human glued to it. The implications of it were staggering. Even if the design was two hundred years old, it would provide some very much desired insight into human design philosophies, as well as solving the mystery of how their technology functioned without Element Zero.

Arterius broke from his stupor. "Thank you, Ambassador."

Goyle nodded calmly, before continuing, "The other item I've been told to share with you all is that our government is currently in debate over whether or not to accept your offer of membership in your Citadel government. There is a lot of disparity between our policies, and it is possible that the Security Council veto the decision on the grounds of defence policy. Your Treaty of Farixen is one of the major points of contention."

General Williams stepped in. "Your treaty limits ship numbers based on the power of their spinal cannon. Our carriers' long-range cannons, at their size and output, would be classed as dreadnought, even if their primary armaments are Strike and Surface fighters. And as a matter of practicality, we have a sizable number of carriers."

"Thank you, General. Now, once our government has made its decision, we would like to send a diplomatic party to your Citadel to present said decision to your Council. To that end, we would like to send one of our ships to the Citadel at a later date. In exchange, we will allow the Citadel Fleet to station a ship on this side of the Relay to act as a guide. Alternatively, we can place the diplomatic party under your care. We'll leave the final decision up to you, since we've been informed that the Theta Relay leads to Citadel space. Thank you all for your time."

The parties broke. Arterius shook hands with Williams, said a few quiet words, before re-joining the Citadel delegation as they were escorted from the building by human Marines and turian soldiers. The quarian ambassador and his bodyguard seemed to be segregated slightly from the main group, although out of the corner of his eye he could see the salarian scientist, Dr Solus, speaking in a rapid-fire exchange with the quarian's geth companions. They were most likely discussing the human technology they had observed around the base. Not just TSFs, but also the curious land vehicle, aircraft, and weapon designs. A lot of the technology seemed to lag far behind their Citadel counterparts, despite its inherent utility.

Vakarian climbed into the waiting shuttle, and once the hatch was closed, it took off. Looking out the transparent aluminium windows, he looked down at the bustling human base. Before they had left, he had spoken to Shepard, who had mentioned that the humans were organising a strike against the third hive on the planet. It was quite obvious down below, as dozens of human dropships took off and landed at the airfield, which had a small grey and white mountain as its backdrop. Sorus blinked. _Wait. What?_

He looked at the mountain again, stared at it, taking in the details. _Is that…?_ Down below, sitting like a silent giant, was a human cruiser. A full sized, six hundred metre long human cruiser, resting on the ground next to the airfield. _That was not there before. How did that land so quietly that no one heard it? What the spirits do the humans use?_

Sorus thought for a moment, before deciding on what seemed to be the rational thing to do. He tapped General Arterius on the shoulder, and silently pointed out the window. As the General looked outside, his jaw dropped and his mandibles went wide. Piran, who had been silent most of the time, dropped her discipline, "Alright, what the heck? Giant robots, large-scale cloak devices, and now they've got cruisers that can land on a planet? This is like something out of some bad RPG."

"I second that motion," said Kirack.

Nobody else spoke for the rest of the flight back to the fleet.

* * *

_Taiyun Base, outside the Airfield_

1st Lieutenant Mari Bridges and Private First Class Shizuka Yoruda sat on the grass staring up at the sky. They were watching the starships and dropships taking off and landing at the base, because they were both off duty while Mari's Comet underwent repairs and Shizuka awaited the arrival of her replacement Phoenix.

"Hey, aren't those the alien shuttles?" The slightly younger Shizuka was staring up at the quickly receding shapes in the distance.

"I can barely see them. How can you tell?"

Shizuka twirled her hair around her finger. "I just have a feeling."

* * *

_Taiyun Base, Command Centre_

"Well that went well, I think we all need a break after all this excitement," said Fred Williams, letting out a sigh of relief as he was informed that the alien delegation's shuttles had returned to their fleet.

"Sir?" Lieutenant Shepard had a slightly puzzled look on her face.

"FLEETCOM back at Arcturus agreed to give the entire fleet heavily extended leave after our primary mission here is complete. Once Objective 01 has been taken out, both the expeditionary and relief fleets will be relieved by elements from the 11th and 13th Fleets. I've already informed the command staff of each ship in the fleet. You were the last one to find out before the general announcement to the rest of the fleet. When I spoke to your husband, Captain Shepard, he mentioned something about taking your daughter for a trip to Chiron."

"General, sir, can I ask how long this leave was supposed to be for?" The Lieutenant was looking very confused now.

"I managed to secure approximately two months of leave for everyone currently in the Shanxi system."

Shepard's jaw could only drop so far.

* * *

_6__th__ July, 2157. Council Chambers, Citadel._

The wings of the immense chamber that represented the centre of mainline galactic power were filled with murmurs as the representative from the newcomer species, humanity, presented her case before the Council. Most species joined very quickly after first contact, but the humans had spent almost three times the average duration to make their decision.

Ambassador Anite Goyle coughed, before continuing. She was had just finished engaging in the diplomatic pleasantries that seemed to be universal to all species' politicians. It was time to get into the real reason for her visit to the capital of Council space.

"It is my great regret to carry this message to you. The United Nations of Earth and the Colonies General Assembly has voted to decline the Citadel Council's offer membership."

Every being in the chamber went silent in disbelief. It was almost painful how quiet it had become. On the platform in from of her, the Councillors were stalwart. And then the asari Councillor, Tevos, blinked. As if 'she' was actually waking up to the situation.

"May I inquire as to why your government reached this decision? Yours is one of the few species that has rejected such an offer."

Goyle let out a sigh. Here came the difficult part.

"Our upper governmental branch, the Security Council, examined the Citadel Conventions and found several irreconcilable differences between our governmental policies. Mostly on matters of civil rights, and military issues. The main points of contention were in regards to the Citadels tolerance of batarian slavery and the treatment of the krogan, who share a similar past to use, and of Synthetic Intelligence's, which are vital to our society, in Citadel space. The other issue, which I'm sure you've been informed of by the diplomats who were sent to Shanxi, regards the Treaty of Farixen. The dreadnought ratio detailed in the Treaty, going by the publically available data on the turian fleet, invalidates a significant majority of the United Nations Navy's capital ships. Our carrier fleets are the backbone of our military power, and joining the Citadel would result in highly reduced power projection."

Coucillor Carnus raised a taloned three-fingered hand to interject. "These carriers, their primary armament is fighters, correct? An interesting concept, but in what way would that invalidate your ships?"

Goyle frowned. Not really my cup of tea, she thought. "It's not my area of expertise, but as I understand it, your Treaty of Farixen limits dreadnoughts by the length of their spinal cannon, yes?"

Carnus nodded. Anita's face went blank for a moment as she accessed the fleet data that she'd been authorised to reveal. There were quite a lot of things that could have been asked, so the higher-ups had prepared a small database of answers.

"The minimum for a ship to be considered a dreadnought is a main gun of length greater than 700 metres. The main guns on current model carriers are approximately 900 metres."

Carnus raised a browplate. "That's a rather oversized gun for a ship that uses fighters as its primary armaments."

"I may do my regular militia retraining, but I chose the Army rather than the Navy as my primary service. The specifics of naval strategy are not exactly my specialty. You would have to ask someone from the Navy to explain it. But we do have an expression that human military personnel favour that should suffice." Goyle loosened up and let out a grin. "More Dakka."

"Huh. Interesting. The krogan would probably take a liking to your species, Ambassador."

Tevos took the opportunity to break back into the discussion. "Ambassador, I'm sure there must be some way your government would agree to joining the civilised galaxy. There is a lot of room for negotiation."

Goyle's grin turned into a grim mask. There it is. The aging woman took a slow breath, before beginning. "I mentioned before that the decision was reached by governmental debate and a referendum amongst the civilian populace of Earth and the colonies. The popular opinion is that humanity will not live under the will or power of an outside entity. So I am sorry, Councillor, but it is unlikely that humanity will ever agree to join the Citadel."

Tevos' calm demeanour shifted to something resembling frustration. "I see. That is…unfortunate."

She wants to press the issue, but can't without looking overbearing, thought Goyle. Interesting.

"We may be unwilling to join with you, but that does not mean we are adverse to trade."

Councillor Aegir, who had been silent throughout the talks, perked up at that. "Would such trade include that of technology and information?"

Anita Goyle dropped the frown and a smile took its place. "Within reason."

* * *

"_Citadel, turian and human military officials turned out in force today at the Cipritine Armoury Primus Testing Centre on Palaven to witness the maiden flight of the first XM-1 Reaper Tactical Surface Fighter. The Reaper was developed with assistance from the human United Nations Defence Force, and is based on the two hundred year old F-35 _Lightning _TSF developed by humanity during their decade's long war against the alien entities known as the BETA. The XM-1 is expected to serve as a testbed for turian and Citadel technological development. Humanity has yet to release the designs for their more recent TSFs, citing security reasons. Citadel-based corporations have petitioned the United Nations military for access to the schematics for older models of their so-called 'microTSFs' which are believed to more closely fit the needs of Citadel military forces. Several United Nations military officials have suggested that this may become a reality in the near future. If you click the link below, you can access the entire public record of human TSF designs."_

_-_Citadel News Network, 'Turian-Human Tactical Surface Fighter enters testing", 19th November, 2158.

"_The United Nations declaration of their intentions to expand into the Skyllian Verge has been met with hostility from the Batarian Hegemony. The Hegemony has been petitioning the Council for exclusive rights to the region for decades, with little success. Colonists are set to depart Terra Nova and Eden Prime in the Exodus Cluster for the newly discovered garden world of Remnant in the Petra Nebula in the next few months. This comes only weeks after news that the United Nations Navy's Relay Exploration Fleet would be expanding to facilitate increased exploration of the Relay Network into the Terminus, Attican Traverse and the Far Rim."_

_-_Citadel News Network, 'Human Expansion Picks Up the Pace', 31st March, 2159.

* * *

_Location Unknown._

The immense black ship drifted silently in its orbit of the dead world. The intelligence within, the mind that was the ship, pondered the information. The lesser beings had encountered a new species, called humans. They did not evolve along the set path. They were an variation, an outlier. And they had survived an encounter with the Devourers, a highly pervasive outlier that simply extinguished life and planets, erasing species before they could be preserved. An outlier that had been eradicated countless times across countless cycles, only to reemerge several cycles later.

And these humans had beaten them back with technology even far less advanced than that of the current cycle.

Nazara activated its drives and powered towards the Relay.

* * *

**Codex:**

**Humanity and the United Nations – Military Culture:**

_Humanity is a species with a highly militant history. It is almost impossible to find a period of human history where one people warred and fought against each other. In the modern United Nations, where civilian military training is a requirement from the age of 14, the military is also the largest employer. Approximately 2% of UN citizens are employed by or are in service in the UN Defence Force, a combined force of nearly 160 million personnel._

_Once human youths complete their compulsory training at the age of sixteen, they are given the choice to continue their formal education or enlist in the military. After first contact with the Citadel, the rate of enlistment doubled._

* * *

**Sorry about the short chapter everyone. I've been busy for most of my uni break, so I didn't have much time to write. Not to mention that before I wrote this one I spent quite a bit of time writing out the next one in advance, because I had some really cool ideas that I wanted to get down as soon as I could.**


	8. Mindoir

**And here's the first of those chapters that I was working on while I wasn't writing about Shanxi and diplomacy. Have fun.**

* * *

_16__th__ June, 2172._

_City of Mindoir, Remnant._  
_I knew today wasn't going to be a good day_, thought Engineers Mate 2nd Class Theresa Shepard. Above her, the sky was ablaze with orbital fire and ships entering Remnant's atmosphere. For the last two hours, Batarian pirates had been landing, most likely to abduct and enslave the population of the small, as yet undeveloped and lightly defended colony world.

For most of those last two hours, the young Navy TSF mechanic had been getting Navy and Marine TSFs prepped for launch from the hangar bays buried beneath the city. The Remnant Defence Command had ordered the deployment of everything that could be used from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps bases. And so launch they had. There were no TSFs left at Atlas Station, and Shepard, being a mid-ranked TSF-mechanic, had been picked to join one of several hastily put together repair squad; which would roam the city to provide quick repairs to the TSF squadrons fighting the pirate forces. Such a role was highly necessary, since the batarians had come prepared; they were packing some very powerful anti-armour weaponry.

At the moment, however, Repair Team 7 was busy attempting to excavate an F-62C Comet that had crash-landed in the side of a building; judging from the explosive-damage to its right jump-unit, it's wings had been clipped, but its still alive pilot claimed that he was still capable of fighting.

Over on top of the downed Comet, Shepard saw their team leader, EM1 Gardner, with his hand to his helmet, muttering. He turned to face the repair team.

"Saddle-up people, we gotta move."

Over the squad net, the downed pilot chuckled. "Go, I'm uncovered enough to get out of here on my own."

As the engineers climbed into their Centaur repair vehicles — Shepard was in a passenger seat because of her legendarily abysmal driving scores — and started moving.  
In the lead vehicle, Gardner began briefing the squad over the comm.

" Listen up team; we've got civilian transports unable to evac due to engine trouble. They don't have enough hands down there to fix the problem, and we're the closest flight mechanics in range." Gardner paused as the repair vehicles swerved around a cluster of destroyed cars. "Not to mention there're pirate forces moving in on the spaceport. Let's pick up the pace so those people get out of here."

"Aye aye" came the reply.

Then a rocket hit the ground near one of the repair vehicles rear tracks. The vehicle shook, and the Marine on the pintle-mounted Heavy Anti-BETA Weapon opened fire at some unseen target.

In the back of the Centaur, Shepard felt her dark red hair fall past her helmet. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. _I didn't sign up for this_, she thought. _No way. I was supposed to be doing maintenance on TSFs at the base, not driving into a warzone! Why didn't I volunteer for one of the home defence fleets?_ _Mum and Dad came out of Shanxi without having to see combat!_

It took Terry a moment to realise that she had vocalised that to the other occupants of the Centaur. One of the Marines seated across from her glared at her through his helmet visor.

"Kid, you joined the military, and in doing so, you did in fact sign up for this. Now get your head screwed on straight, we've civvies to save."

That jolted Shepard back to reality. _That's right, it's not just me. The people on those transports might have basic training, but it won't be enough to help them survive this.  
_The Marine standing in the top hatch was hammering away with the HABW. There was another explosion somewhere nearby, and Shepard jerked in her seat as the Centaur swerved to avoid it.

Then there was a jolt as the three Centaur armoured recovery vehicles came to a halt outside the one of the gates to the spaceport, one of several gates leading onto the runway.

Inside, Shepard noticed that the explosions and gunfire sounds had reduced, since the spaceport hasn't been directly attacked yet. Despite that, it had still obviously been hit, with several blown up aerospace-craft lying around wrecked hangars and docking terminals.

The Centaurs pulled into one of the more bunker-like hangars, where a pair of civilian FTL-drive equipped transports were waiting, guarded by a single heavily damaged Aerospace Force F-61 Phoenix II. Evidently, enough Batarians had made it close enough to the port that the Phoenixes that were normally guarding it had been reduced to just the one.

The TSF repairmen dismounted, and immediately began unloading the equipment that they would need to get the engines on the transports up and running.

One of the ports remaining engineers walked up to the group, explained the situation in detail, and the Gardner began dishing out orders.

As the crew worked on the transports, Shepard noticed that the sounds of combat seemed to be getting closer. Then there was a roar, and then a battered Army A-21 Ravager slammed down onto the Tarmac with a crack. The pilot came in over the radio, broadcasting to everyone in the spaceport.

"Get to cover, massive batarian force closing fast, they'll be here any second. I'm your support until the rest of my squadron gets here, ETA six minutes."

Shepard though she heard one of the Marines in the sandbag emplacement by the hangar door swear. And then rockets and mortars began landing near the hangar. The team radio-net lit up again, this time the Marine who had scolded her aboard the Centaur. "We'll move to the gates, hold them off there. Get those transports in the air!"

The six Marines began sprinting in the direction of the main gate, the battered Phoenix following behind them. Towering over them, the Ravager opened fire on some unseen target with its chain guns.

Down in the hangar, things were going quite well. They'd managed to re-adjust the vector-thrust systems on one of the transports, and the half of the team that Shepard was on was almost finished tuning the engines on the other.  
And then everything went to shit all at once.

"Fuck! There are a lot of tanks out here! Where the hell did they come from? Oi, you Navy bastards, get those birds airbor—ARRGHH!"

Shepard heard an explosion coming from the direction of the main gate. Out front, the A-21 started moving. "Ravager, moving to eng—"

Then the Ravager, one of the most heavily armoured mechs used by the UN Defence Forces, took several anti-armour missiles to its chest block, followed by a volley of anti-armour mass accelerator rounds to several of its armour sections. And like a tree felled, the iron-clad giant toppled onto its back.

"Fuck! This is Lieutenant Kantor, my attacker is down. Neural-link is damaged, AI core offline, auto-targeting is down too. I can't fight in this condition, bailing out."

Shepard watched anxiously as the cockpit block slid open, and the Army pilot climbed out and lowered himself to the ground. Only to be met with a volley of sniper fire from somewhere outside that shredded his flight suit. Kantor fell to the ground in an expanding pool of blood.

"Dammit!" Shouted Gardner, before stopping. "We're ready to launch." He turned to one of the transport pilots. "Get out of here while you still can."

"If we try to launch now, we get shot down. And then two thousand people die."

Shepard looked down at her feet. They were shaking. _I've gotta do something. Batarians incoming, and we don't have any weapons to deal with tanks. Gotta be something...  
_  
And then it came to her. She removed her M7 Lancer carbine from its holster on her leg, and began sprinting for the hangar doors.

EM2 Patel shouted after her, "Shepard, where the hell are you going? We can't hold this hangar if we're down people!"

Shepard ignored her, and continued running for her target. As she got outside, rifle fire impacted around her feet, and she returned fire as she ran. Within seconds, she was at her objective. Theresa Shepard stepped past the pool of blood containing the corpse of Lieutenant Kantor, holstered her Lancer, and quickly climbed into the cockpit of the downed Ravager, shutting the armoured canopy the moment she was inside.

She sat down in the pilot's seat, or rather; lay down because of the angle the TSA was at. Shepard took a moment to survey the Ravagers internal damage. _Damaged neuro-linker, piece of hull metal broke free and pierced the AI core, several broken display panels, and fuzzy dice fell off the canopy latch. Ok, I can do this.  
_She pulled her two data pads from their pouches on her tool-belt, and wired them into the ports on the control consoles. Diagnostic windows opened up on the screens. Outside, she could hear small arms fire pattering off the armour.

Gardner came in the comm-net. "Shepard, what on earth are you doing inside that mech? You heard Kantor, it isn't going to fly. And you can't drive anyway."

Shepard kept working, rapidly reprogramming her data pads to replace the targeting systems. "I can't drive, but I sure as hell can stand, EM."

Her fingers stopped moving, and she strapped herself into the seat using the little-used restraint harness, then braced herself in the seat, gripping the two control sticks that were part of the manual control system. Shepard didn't have the neural code or training that would allow her to sync with the mech, but she did have a lot of TSF and TSA operation and repair manuals saved in her own neural net. Since she was wearing a normal infantry BDU, her suit didn't have the restraining locks that flight suits did, so she wasn't protected from rapid movements and g-forces like a pilot would have been. But that wasn't what she wanted. What she needed was to keep from falling out of the seat as she forced the Ravager to roll over and lift itself off of the ground into a crouch. _Easy does it, easy does it_. An anti-armour round flew past her. _Move faster, dammit._

The A-21 Ravager rose itself to its full height, and stood still. _I can do this. I can do this. I CAN DO THIS!  
_Engineers Mate Second Class Theresa Jade Shepard slammed her fingers down on both triggers, and the two shoulder mounted, five barrelled GAU-37 Eradicator chain guns began tearing into the batarians forces that had been approaching the hangar from all sides. Her eyes darted between the screens, taking in the vast amounts of information displayed all around her.

Shepard removed her right hand from the control stick, and began tapping away on one other the data pad. The two back mounted Eradicators swung down and spun around, and began tearing into the targets that were approaching from her rear using the other pad. She didn't even need to look. She just had a gut feeling that they were coming.

Within seconds, the batarians forces, several dozen pirates and some right tanks, lay still on the ground, shredded, perforated and trailing smoke and steam into the air.

"Holy shit. Good work kid," said one of the other engineers.

Shepard let out the breath that she hadn't realise she'd been holding in. She blinked a few times, taking in the destruction that she had wrought. Whoa. I did that? That actually worked?

As her pulse began to fall back to normal levels, she tapped on the controls to rotate the head mounted cameras. And the she swore.

"You guys might want to get out of here. Like, right now. I think that commotion I just caused is starting to attract batarians. There's a whole battalion worth moving this way!"

She could have sworn that she could see Gardner down on the ground cursing.

"Alright, let's get these birds in the air. Shepard."

"Providing support, EM1."

Within moments, the repair teams were towing the large civilian transport craft out of the hangar and onto the runway.

The first of the transports took to the air, heading south in the direction of Vael, which hadn't been hit yet. They couldn't break for warp, since the Navy already had their hands full taking on the slaver fleet in orbit and was unable to provide cover for them.

As the transport took flight, Shepard felt a strange compulsion. Like something dragging at her subconscious. The feeling was taking over, and she felt her hands moving to the fire controls. All around her, she could feel the air burning red, and out in the city, she could feel something, something compelling her to act.

Her semi-controlled left hand wrapped around the left stick, while her right went to the targeting controls on her pad, selecting a targeting vector. _I don't know why, but I have to so this.  
_  
She pulled the trigger, and all six of the Ravagers Eradicators opened up, hundreds of 20mm rounds streaming towards the first transport.

Someone screamed, "SHEPARD, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

And then the cannon rounds intersected the paths of a dozen missiles fired from the ground, which exploded a safe distance from the transport; several bursts took down a group of batarian gunships that had jumped out from between the city spires to intercept the transport. _How the hell did I do that?_

Still following that strange instinct, Shepard raked the two forearm mounted Eradicators across the ground, tearing through a platoon of slavers that had were moving towards her from the ruined hangars. She hadn't even noticed them. She took control of the guns back and began focusing on taking down the missiles that she could feel were being fired. It was like she could feel the batarians firing before they actually did, like she could sense their intentions. As she focused on following those feelings, she failed to notice that the long-faded streaks in her dark red hair were beginning to glow gold and silver.

The second transport was away very quickly, Shepard intercepting all of the firepower directed at it. The sheer volume of munitions being directed at them didn't stop the batarians from advancing on the now empty hangars.

"Shepard, get your ass out of there, we're leaving."

She looked around at all of the very angry batarians approaching, hundreds of them. Most of them carrying rocket launchers.

"No go, sir. Too many approaching. You won't have time to pick me up before the pirates get here. I'll provide cover while you get out of here."

"Shepard."

A rocket slammed into the the Ravagers left shoulder block. "We're out of time. Get out of here! Go!" Shepard jammed down on the trigger, dragging the guns across the lines of advancing batarians.

Below her, the Centaurs carrying Repair Team 7 and its surviving Marine escort darted out of the hangar, driving away as fast as they could.

As she felt hem leave, Shepard turned her attention towards the pirates and slavers approaching the Ravager. Some were sprinting towards her, carrying what looked and felt like demolition charges, while other hung back in whatever cover they could find, aiming missile launchers up at her. Her fingers danced across the screens, hands alternating between screens and sticks, eyes darting left and right, processing data with just her brain at a rate that would have been difficult for her neural net to handle. Some of the batarian sappers managed to get through the barrage. As the alien began to reach up to affix the charge to the Ravagers right leg, Shepard's hands hammered away at the controls with the ease of someone whose hand been using keyboard inputs for years. Within a second, a small device mounted in the leg armour rotated in its socket, stopped, let out a quiet crack, and then a twenty centimetre long tungsten spike impaled the batarian through the skull. Moments later, the other sappers followed, the Phalanx CIWS tearing the slavers apart before they could even arm their charges.

Shepard felt the batarians aiming their launchers, and raked the chain guns over their positions.

And then something hit her. Followed by another thing. And another. One by one, the batarian tanks that had driven onto the runway were firing their AT cannons at her. One shot took off her right forearm and Eradicator. Another clove a huge chunk out of her left shoulder block. Slowly, even as Shepard retaliated, the tanks tore into the Ravager, before a rocket fired by a pirate infantryman shredded her right knee, which caused the heavily damaged mech to lurch and topple. As the Ravager fell, Shepard got her revenge by tearing the tanks apart with the five remaining Eradicators. Then it landed heavily on its side. Inside, Shepard was flung against the restraints, which, thankfully, held. Mostly, anyway, as the force of the impact caused her to hit her head on one of the consoles, and she could feel blood slowly falling to the side of the cockpit below-to her left. Her helmet had also come free, and was lying on the impromptu deck. _Well, shit, looks like this is the end.  
_  
She reached over and tapped on the controls, turning the Ravagers armoured head to face the oncoming batarians. There were a lot of them.

With great difficulty, she pulled her Lancer from its holster, while with her other hand, she tapped on her makeshift targeting system, trying to find a gun that was still functional. There wasn't one. Shepard exhaled. _Time to go then_. She unbuckled herself from the seat, falling a very short distance into the cockpits side armour. With a groan, she pulled herself into a crouch, as high as she could get without hitting her head again, swept her helmet up onto her head and raised her carbine. She had half a magazine still in her Lancer, and another eight magazines tucked into her tool belt, as well as enough power cells to use all of those magazines. She pursed her lips, before pulling her bulky monkey-wrench from the strap that held it. She gave it a quick once-over before returning it to its spot on her belt. _If it works, it works._

Shepard exhaled again. Can't let them use explosives to force me out. I go out on my own terms. She brought the Lancer to her shoulder, then slapped her hand down on the cockpit release. Climbing out of the sideways cockpit, she found herself pinned behind the downed Surface Attacker as the batarians approaching from its rear opened fire. But she was lucky, and the TSA had fallen against the hangar, blocking any attempt to flank from behind. Taking cover behind the remains of her left shoulder block, Shepard ducked out of cover, spraying fire across the batarians that were advancing on the totalled Ravager. Several went down, the overpowered anti-BETA rounds penetrating the barriers protecting her targets, before perforating the targets themselves.

Pulling back behind the armour, Shepard reloaded, before dashing over to the other end of the shoulder block, ducking out of cover and dumping high-explosive hypervelocity rounds into as many batarians as she could.  
She fired off several more bursts before finding her magazine out of ammo and her carbine on the verge of overheating. Just as she was shifting her position to get back into cover, a rifle round punched through her lightly armoured BDUs and into her right shoulder, narrowly missing the bone.

Theresa screamed in pain as she fell back against the armour. "Fuck!" Gritting her teeth, she pulled a canister of medi-gel from her tool-belt and sprayed it into the wound, letting out a sharp breath as the gel released its painkillers and began to harden, sealing the bullet hole. Struggling to her feet, she lifted her Lancer, cradling it in her wounded arm, slid in a fresh magazine and rotated out the overloaded heat sink using her good left arm. Painfully, she raised the carbine in her left hand. I can do this. Stay alive, Terry. Wasn't trained for this, but thats what those regular retraining sessions are for. Stay alive. It's Janes birthday next month. Gotta be there for that. Gotta stay alive. She let out few ragged breaths and grit her teeth.

_Go._ Theresa Shepard poked herself out of cover, firing her Lancer one handed at the crowd of batarians that seemed to be increasing in size. And because their numbers were increasing, they were becoming bolder. As she ducked back to reload her nearly empty magazine, two pirates managed to get close enough to rush her, probably to try and take her as another slave. Apparently, highly capable slaves were valued in the Hegemony. In response, she blasted one of them with the remaining rounds in the carbine, dropped it, and then caved the other ones skull in with her monkey-wrench, before kicking the corpse out of her cover.

Behind the downed Ravager, the batarians had stopped firing. They were still seething with rage at the lone human who had fought them to a standstill, but they had stopped firing. Shepard poked her head out from cover, and saw a single batarian stepping forwards, holding what looked like a megaphone up to its hideous face. She pulled herself back. "Surrender human, and we will grant you a quick death. Continue to fight, and we get you, you will suffer a fate worse than that received by the most traitorous of slaves."

Yeah right. She let out a pained laugh, before shifting slightly. "Go fuck yourself, you four-eyed freak!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, before spinning out of cover and firing a burst into the arrogant bastard with the megaphone. The slaver dropped, its corpse eviscerated by the explosive ammunition.

The batarians returned fire, forcing her back into cover. A rocket smashed into the back of the TSA. _So we're back to heavy weapons. Guess they really wanna kill me now_. She poked her Lancer around the topside corner, and fired off another burst. And then the weapon ran dry. Shepard looked down at her feet, and realised that there were eight empty magazines lying at her feet. _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck._ _That wasn't supposed to happen! The hero never ran of ammo in movies!_

Shepard returned the now empty carbine to its holster, and surveyed her cover. Lying in the ground was the rifle that had been carried by the pirate whose head she had caved in earlier. Picking it up with both hands, she pulled it to her right shoulder, which by now was healing quickly — she could almost feel the flesh slowly regenerating— before ducking out of cover to fire a the batarians. The first one she hit didn't go down immediately like what would normally happen. Instead, Shepard saw the telltale blue flash of mass effect barriers activating to block the bullets. _Fuck. Damn these crappy, underpowered mass effect pieces-of-crap.  
_  
Now very pissed off, she continued firing, until the weapon flashed that it was about to overheat. She ducked back, to let the weapon cool. As she did so, she clambered up onto the chest block of the Ravager, took aim at the pissed off batarians closing in, before firing long bursts at their heads.

The return fire was savage. Along with the usual wall of bullets, several missiles lanced out at her, impacting against the mech's right shoulder block and back, rocking Shepard's firing point. Shepard felt a jolt, followed by a sharp pain. Her hands sprung open from the shock, letting the captured rifle tumble to the ground. Dropping back into cover, she looked down and saw blood beginning to spread from her lower torso. "Fuck", spat Shepard, as she pulled another medi-gel canister from her belt with shaking hands. There was a quiet hiss, and the pain began to recede. As her vision began to clear, she noticed that her bio-monitor was trying to warn her about her punctured left lung. Ignoring the warnings, she reached to her tool-belt and once again extracted her blood coated wrench. Poking her head up slightly, she shouted as loud as her reduced lung-capacity would allow. "Come and get me, you four-eyed fucks!" The exertion forced her to cough up blood, despite the medi-gel sealing off the ruptured areas.

Just as she was about to jump down to meet them she felt the presence of something, and the batarian lines exploded. Several dozen batarians, preparing to rush Shepard's now silent position, had been torn to shreds by cannon and missile fire. Looking up as she climbed down, Shepard could see eight micro-TSFs decloaking. They were painted in a wide array of colours, red, white, black, yellow, orange, pink, red and green. Her comm, neural net, not radio, lit up in her mind.

"This is Beacon-1, off the UNS Lemuria. Ready to lend assistance, Engineer Shepard." The woman on the other end of the line sounded around the same age as her, if not younger.

Shepard felt her consciousness fading as her adrenaline wound down. "Aye, Aye, Beacon-1. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll take a nap." And then everything went black.

* * *

**No codex this time, couldn't think of what to write about or explain. I do hope you guys like the explanation for the BETA that I gave last chapter. I've been sitting on that one for _months._ **

**Until next time.**


	9. Soldiers

**Hey guys, it's been a while. Quite a while. Finally found the time to continue writing. This chapter isn't as long as the previous ones, but it's kind of an interlude.**

**Anyway, I'm back, and I'm going to try and get back into a regular writing pattern.**

* * *

_"―today marks the third day since the attack on Remnant by batarian pirates and slavers. Since the attack was successfully repelled by the United Nations Defence Force garrisons, albeit at great cost to the defenders, many have asked 'why weren't there more casualties during the later stages of the invasion?' Many of the survivors of Mindoir have also questioned the batarians motives behind their removal of troops during the later stages of the invasion._

_An anonymous source forwarded this exclusive footage, taken from the surviving surveillance systems at the Mindoir Aerospace-port. Be warned that this footage is highly graphic. It shows a single UN Army A-21 Ravager decimating batarian forces attempting to capture the spaceport, most likely in an attempt to prevent the escape of civilian aircraft. The pilot of the Ravager managed to hold off the batarian forces in the vicinity, who at the time numbered approximately one hundred, while simultaneously intercepting missiles and gunships attempting to down the escaping civilian transports. This caused the batarians to move larger numbers of troops to the spaceport, almost a battalion worth, something that was noticed by defenders elsewhere in the city._

_Eventually, the Tactical Surface Attacker was taken down by massed heavy weapons fire, but not before the all of the heavy vehicles brought against it were destroyed. The pilot survived, and single-handedly held off the batarians massing against her, literally one handed at one point, due to an injury sustained. The pilot, who has yet to be identified, held off dozens of batarians with just a rifle, and what appears to be a wrench of some sort, until support arrived in the form of the relief force detached from the 17th Fleet out of Terra Nova. The pilot then succumbed to her injuries immediately afterwards.―"_

Sol News Network report, 19th June, 2172.

* * *

_"―Since the news about the unknown pilot who has since come to be known as 'The Saviour of Mindoir' broke, journalists here at Sol News Network have discovered the identity of the unknown pilot, and we have received permission from the UNDF to reveal this information. Contrary to popular belief, the pilot that single-handedly broke the batarian invasion is not a skilled pilot, nor a veteran soldier. Rather, the soldier in question is Engineers Assistant Second Class Theresa Shepard, a Navy TSF mechanic who had been stationed at Surface Naval Station Atlas outside Mindoir. The 18 year old mechanic has since been confirmed to be the daughter of Captain Hannah Shepard, who was the Executive Officer on the UNS Athens during the first contact with the Citadel, and Rear Admiral John Shepard, who commanded the relief force that was sent to Shanxi. Both were unavailable for comment. Shepard's commanding officer, Engineers Mate First Class Rupert Gardner, was able to give us a brief interview. 'Shepard...crazy kid. Never met anyone with enough guts to do something like that. Honestly speaking, who in their right mind thinks that it is a good idea to take on a thousand angry pirates alone? TSF training? Nah, Shepard ain't a pilot. She couldn't even drive a car, let alone a high performance machine like a Ravager. Heck, we put her in a Hardiman once, just to see how bad she was, and she tripped over the first step she took. But she's amazing with tech. That Ravager she was piloting, the one in the video that seems to be on the front page of everything on the net, that thing was disabled to hell. Everything was busted, neural-link, AI core, targeting computer, and Shepard still managed to kill over a thousand angry batarians with it. It took her all of two minutes to jury-rig a makeshift targeting system in that cockpit. We looked at it afterwards when we salvaged the Ravager. Command wants it written into the operation manuals. Crazy thing is, she had it set up for complete manual control. Hell, I don't think anyone is capable of simultaneously aiming six guns with that level of precision. But Shepard did it. Probably saved the whole city. Kid deserves a medal... Hero? Damn right she is.'_

_The current whereabouts of Engineers Assistant Shepard are unknown, but it believed that she is being treated for her injuries at the Jon Grissom Naval Hospital on Terra Nova. We have reached out to the UN Navy High Command for further information. The original pilot of the A-21 Ravager, Lieutenant Mihael Kantor, is set to receive funeral with full military honours, along with all of the men and women from the Army, Marines, Navy and Aerospace Force who fell during the battle. Now, on to Farid with the sports."_

-Sol News Network, 21st June, 2172

* * *

24th June, 2172

"EA2 Shepard? There's a Colonel Albrecht here to see you."

Theresa Shepard sat up slowly in her hospital bed. She'd only been awake for a day so far. The shoulder wound was healing quickly, but the punctured lung had taken several days in a recovery coma to fix. The door opened, and in walked an balding middle-aged man wearing a uniform that she didn't recognise.

Shepard moved to salute, the healing wound in her shoulder aching as she did so.

"No need for that, EA. You're still recovering." The man pulled up a chair and sat down. "Now, I'll get straight to the point. I've come here with an offer for you. How would the Saviour of Mindoir like to join my program. That is, Nexus Special Operations Project 7."

Shepard's jaw dropped. "S-sir? N7?" There wasn't anyone in the military who hadn't heard of the Nexus-7 programme. The joint Marine-Navy program was where the best of the best got better. Definitely not the place for an 18 year old repairwoman. "Yo-you're kidding, right? I'm a TSF mechanic, not a soldier. I just fix things..." she mumbled.

The colonel frowned. "Shepard, I don't know if anyone told you or not, but the whole United Nations knows what you did on Mindoir. I'm talking front page news, on literally every news distributor. Hell, you're even trending on the Citadel Extranet. Congrats, kid. You're a hero." Shepard's jaw just about hit the floor.

Albrecht gave her a few moments to collect herself before continuing. "Should you accept, a few things are going to change. First, you'll be going back to school. OCS, back on Earth, to be specific." His expression changed to an evil grin. "I've left orders for the instructors there to pay special attention to vehicle training. I only accept the best in my program, and being able to drive is one of those requirements. Afterwards, you'll be put through the grinder of the N7 Project."

Shepard nodded slowly. "What's the training there like, sir?"

"It'll be hell, that's for sure. We have a very high casualty rate. So what do you say?"

Shepard thought for a while; the seconds blurred together as the memories flashed past. The thrill of combat, the brief rush of flying that Ravager, the feeling of knowing that she had done some good. The answer was obvious.

"When do I start?"

"Next week, once you've been discharged. Now, I should probably get to the official reason for my being here." Albrecht pulled a case from his jacket and opened it, revealing two small medallions. "Engineers Assistant Second Class Theresa J. Shepard, I hereby award you the Order of the Purple Heart and the Defiance of Terra for your actions during the defence of Remnant." He handed her a case containing the medals.

"Thank you sir."

Albrecht stood up."Humanity expects a lot from you, kid. Oh, and during your selection for the program, I spoke to your mother. She mentioned that you were quite the trailblazer when you were younger. I think you'll fit right in with our Infiltrator group. Speaking of which, you do look quite a bit like your mother; right down to the hair." He smirked. "You might want to do something about that, though. People might think you're getting old like me." Albrecht let out a laugh, before stepping out of the room.

Theresa raised an eyebrow, before reaching up and running a hand through her waist length hair. "Huh? What?" She lifted a few of the silver strands. _WHAT?_

* * *

_Mars, 17th August 2173_

The newly-commissioned Ensign Theresa Shepard stepped off the shuttle with the other N7 recruits. She had spoken to some of them on the shuttle, and had found they were from all over the place. Lieutenant Riley and Staff Sergeant Hendriks were Marine infantry, 1st Lieutenant Hassan was a Force Recon pilot, Flight Lieutenant Jie was a Navy TSF driver, and there was also 2nd Lieutenant Fukai who was a strike pilot of all things.

As they stood at attention on the landing pad with the men and women who had been dropped off by previous shuttles, a dark-skinned man wearing a Navy uniform, but with a Marine Corps soft cover on his head, walked towards them, robotic arm glinting in the sunlight. His eyes passing over them, taking the measure of his new meat. As he walked past her, Shepard took a quick glance at his uniform. The rank insignia on his collar marked him as a Commander in the UN Navy, and the name 'Anderson' was stitched into the name patch on his chest. Anderson seemed to pause as he passed her, eyes fixating briefly on the name 'Shepard' on her uniform. There was a hint of recognition in his eyes, although his face remained emotionless.

After finishing his inspection, Anderson moved back so he was facing the entire group. "I'm Commander David Anderson. Former Force Recon Marine, now Navy Commander and N7. Welcome to the N7 Program. Welcome to Hell."

* * *

_"In retaliation to the batarian attacks on Remnant and Terra Nova, the United Nations Security Council has declared its intentions to 'bring the Batarian Hegemony before the might of humanity'. This comes in the months since the decimation of a major pirate base in the region at Torfan by the combined forces of the UN Navy's 5th and 12th Fleets, and the 22nd Marine Division. It is believed by both UN analysts and Citadel observers that the continuing attacks on human space lanes and colonies are being funded and supplied by the Batarian government, in an attempt to force an end to human exploration in the Skyllian Verge. The Navy has since announced the acceleration of battleship, light carrier, and frigate production, and further upgrades to existing vessels._

_In other news, the Fythern elders of Tribute have announced their desire to integrate their people into the United Nations, to repay the debt they incurred when human forces liberated the Epsilon Indi system from a BETA incursion in 2103."_

-Colonial News Network, 3rd August, 2176

* * *

_Torfan. 31st May, 2176_

"You know the drill Marines, GO, GO, GO!"

The rear hatch of the D-22F Sabertooth dropship slammed down, and Navy Lieutenant Theresa Shepard was already halfway down the ramp, firing her M-8 Avenger at the batarian slavers who began emerging from the tunnel entrance. Behind her, the Marines who her team darted charged after their attached special forces squad leader.

Above them, the ships of the 5th and 12th Fleets were plastering the area around the slaver bases, preventing any avenue of escape. They were so prepared that even a pair of the still top secret Dreadnoughts, which were almost never moved from their concealed positions in their home systems, were lying in wait at the only two relays that went in and out of the star system. Any ship that tried to escape would be completely obliterated by a force 32 times that of the nuclear bombs that had flattened Berlin two centuries ago. The rest of the assembled fleet, a half a dozen battleships and their attendant cruisers and frigates, bombarding the surface defences, and three whole destroyer squadrons, which were hunting down slaver ships throughout the system.

Outside the mass effect atmosphere shields, Marines, three companies worth, stalked across the barren ground in their Hardiman Assault Armour, SABRs picking off anything that moved. Ahead of them was a company of Archer tanks, which were firing their cannons at targets somewhere over the horizon; such an act required the tanks to sync their fire control systems to that of the massive G-75 Athena Gravity Fortress that was hanging over the battlefield, which was saving its big guns for other more important targets. By now, several pirate bases had been attacked, and thousands of slaves freed from captivity, all over the small moon. But those had been the small bases. The one Shepard's group was aiming for was the big one. Big enough to commit one of the enormous Athena's to. _We're unveiling too many super weapons today, aren't we? Dreadnoughts? Grav-Forts? The higher ups must really want to show off the "might of humanity". _

Shepard checked her HUD for the location of the advance platoon from the 23rd Light Infantry Battalion. The first platoon to enter the base had gone missing somewhere in the tunnels, and they were too far underground for their IFF signals to penetrate the surface. So the Marine squad under Shepard's command had been tasked with finding them.

* * *

Shepard felt around the corner, searching. _Clear again._ _This entire section is dead._ She looked down. There were spent ammunition blocks and and blood all over the ground. She motioned the rest of her unit forwards, and they quickly took inventory of the room. _Dammit, another one. That's nine so far. There were twenty two in the platoon._ She bent down and placed a marker next to the dead Marine, before placing the deceased man's rifle on the ground next to him. It had been lying on the floor in a small puddle of blood at the other end of the room.

Shepard let out a quiet sigh, and silently brought up the roster for the missing platoon. _Corporal Chester M. Fa, KIA. _

Shepard took one last glance at the body as she signalled Sergeant Norten through the next door.

* * *

_Nineteen. Nineteen bodies. Not a single survivor yet. Dammit. _It had gotten to a point where Theresa had given up on using her abilities, since they hadn't seen a single living thing since entering this region of the tunnels. Not a single living Marine, slaver, or slave. Just bodies. Bodies. Bodies. Bodies. From what they had pieced together, the Marines had pushed too far into the tunnels, and had been cut off from the surface. Judging from the increased number of batarian corpses on the ground, the next room was where the Marines had made their last stand.

Shepard's team stacked up on the door. "Go."

The Marines fanned out into the room, Avenger rifles at the ready.

"Clear."

"Clear."

"Clear."

Sergeant Norten turned to her. "All clear LT."

_Here we go again._ "What have we got, Sarge?"

"All Marines accounted for. The last three are in here. Looks like they put up a hell of a fight, ma'am. The other entrance is completely backed up with corpses. Looks like the four-eyes gave up on taking back this compartment and tossed a grenade in. Finished off our boys, at least an hour ago. They would have died quickly. PFC Gantz was only identifiable by the fact that the other two were female. Too mangled to be properly identified."

Theresa closed her eyes. _Dammit. Dammit. DAMMIT. We couldn't save any of them. _Reopening them, she turned to Norten as she updated the list in her head.

"We're heading back to the surface to report. Get everyone ready to move. We'll link up with the main force on the way out."

Norten was about to respond when one of the other Marines gave a shout.

"Lieutenant, we've got a live one! Malfunctioning biometric sensor."

Shepard's eyes went wide, and she ran over to where Corporal Shanks was kneeling over the small-framed Marine. The small body was unmoving, but Shanks had taken her helmet off, and Theresa could see the cuts and bruises all over the Marine's face, signs of a concussion grenade detonation. But the young girl was breathing. _We did it. We found one. _Shepard fell to her knees and bit her lip. It was all she could do to keep herself from breaking down into tears.

_We saved one we saved one we saved one…_

Slowly, Theresa brought up the list and found the Marine. _Private Ashley Williams, Alive._

Shepard spent a few moments collecting her thoughts, before taking a look around the room again. Around her, there were over a dozen batarian corpses, some killed with a bayonet. _She did this? _

She reached down and put the young Marine's helmet back on, before hefting the girl over her shoulder.

"Alright Marines, everyone back to the surface. Move!" _No one else is dying down here._

* * *

**Codex:**

_**Humanity and the United Nations - The Navy and Marines:**_

_Despite being separate service branches, the Navy and Marines are very closely linked, given that any ground force requires transport to its objective. The two branches are so closely intertwined that it is not uncommon to find officers and enlisted personnel from one branch transfer to the other. There have been several cases where enlisted Marines have become the Captains of Naval warships._

* * *

**So, short chapter over. Next chapter, we reach 2183. Hooray.**

**Please review guys, I honestly have no idea if I'm doing this right.**


	10. Beginnings

"_The Arcturus Prime relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence."_

She turned the corner, briskly passing the grey haired woman standing by the command console.

"Commander," said one of the crewmen, as she stepped past him, her dark grey armour almost brushing against the man, not slowing down.

"_We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination."_

The bald man at the navigator's station nodded to her as she passed him by.

"_The relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector. All stations secure for transit."_

She stepped into the main corridor, glancing briefly at the crewmen at their consoles. She brushed past another crew member, to take her place beside the turian standing in the cockpit behind the cockpit.

"_Board is green. Approach run has begun."_

Commander Theresa Shepard stared out at the immense Mass Relay as the ship darted towards it.

"_Hitting the relay in three….two...one"_

There was a flash of blue light as the _Normandy_ burst into FTL flight.

* * *

**A/N: Here we go, ME1. Just a short intro, just like we had for ME1. I'm hopefully going to start updating more frequently.**


	11. Eden Prime

_23rd July, 2183. Utopia System._

"Thrusters: check. Navigation: check. Internal Emission Sink and Electronic Camouflage System, engaged. All systems online. Drift...just under fifteen hundred K." The young man with the longer than regulation beard sitting in the pilot's seat tapped away at the holographic controls.

The black and red armoured turian standing behind him shifted stance."Fifteen hundred is good. Your captain will be pleased." With that, he turned and left.

The pilot shook his head. "I hate that guy," he muttered.

The Marine in the co-pilot seat looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "Nihlus gave you a compliment, so you hate him?"

"You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom? That's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that's incredible. And besides, Spectres are trouble. I don't like having him on board." He shifted in his seat. "Call me paranoid," he said quietly.

"You're paranoid. The Council helped fund this project, they have the right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yeah, that is the _official _story. Only an idiot believes the official story."

A small voice chimed in through the speakers mounted on the helm console. "Lieutenant Moreau, you do realise that Commander Shepard is standing behind you, correct?"

Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, better known as Joker, winced, before shaking his head. He turned to face the XO of the _Normandy_. "_Thanks_, EDI. Ugh. Commander, what do you think?"

Commander Theresa Shepard raised an eyebrow and put on a small smile. "They don't send Spectres on shakedown runs. But who knows with them?"

Joker turned to look at Lieutenant Alenko. "So maybe there's more going on here than the Captain's letting on." Alenko shrugged.

Shepard just sighed.

A deep, oddly-accented voice came in through the cockpit intercom. "Joker, status report."

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged. Everything looks solid."

"Good. Switch on the FTL comm and link us into the FleetNet. I want mission reports relayed to Defence Force brass before we reach Eden Prime."

Joker adjusted his flight cap. "Aye aye, Captain. Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way."

"He's already here, Lieutenant." Alenko gave Joker an odd look, while Joker just shook his head. Shepard could only stare at the back of the man's seat in barely contained horror.

There was a pause. The Captain's voice came on again. "Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing." The intercom chimed and cut out.

Joker glanced up at Shepard. "You get that, Commander?"

"He sounds angry. Something must have gone wrong with the mission." She turned and walked back down the neck of the ship.

Joker scoffed. "Pff. Captain always sounds like that when he's talking to me."

Smirking, Alenko glanced over at Joker. "Can't possibly imagine why."

* * *

Shepard strolled down the neck of the ship, trying her best to remain calm. _Captain sounds angry, and he wants me for a debriefing. We have a Spectre on board. I really hope this doesn't mean trouble._

As if reading her thoughts, she could hear Navigator Pressly talking with someone over the ship's internal comm network. "I'm telling you, I just saw him! He marched by like he was on a mission." The man's colour was filled with curiosity, but mostly filled with a confused feeling of frustration.

"He's a Spectre, they're always on a mission," said the gravelly voice on the other end.

Pressly looked frustrated. "And we're getting dragged halfway across the galaxy with him!"

The person at the other end sighed. "Relax, Pressly. You're going to give yourself an ulcer." The line disconnected.

Pressly sighed and stepped back from the console, and glanced around. He saw Shepard approaching, and turned to salute. "Congratulations, Commander. Looks like we had a smooth run. You heading down to see the captain?"

"Aye." _Maybe I should ask…_ "Nihlus was with him. Sounds like you don't trust our turian guest."

Pressly shifted slightly, obviously uncomfortable. "Sorry, Commander. Just having a chat with Adams down in Engineering. Didn't mean to cause any trouble. But you have to admit, something's odd about this mission. The whole crew feels it."

_So that's why the whole crew's colour feels slightly off. Very reassuring. _"You think the Fleet brass are holding out on us? Joker said something similar."

"As much as I hate to admit it, Joker's probably right. If all we're supposed to do is test out the stealth system, why is Captain Anderson in charge? And then there's Nihlus." His eyes narrowed. "Spectres are elite operatives. Top covert agents. Why send a Spectre, and a turian Spectre at that, on a shakedown run?" Pressly shook his head slightly. "It doesn't add up."

_Well, when you put it that way...hmm… _Shepard nodded. "I'll see if I can get some answers when I see him." _That should calm him down._ Pressly's colour began to calm.

The navigator nodded. "Good luck, Commander." He turned back to his station.

Shepard turned to continue her walk to the comm room. Over by the command station, there was a very excited and vibrant colour.

"-up on Eden Prime, Doc. It's not the kind of place Spectres visit. There's something Nihlus isn't telling us about this mission."

The ship's doctor, Lieutenant Commander Karin Chakwas, looked at the young Marine with concern. "That's crazy. The Captain's in charge here. He wouldn't take orders from a Spectre. Nor should he have to, since humanity does not fall under the Council's jurisdiction."

"Not his choice, Doc. Spectres don't answer to anyone. They can do whatever they want. Kill anyone who get's in their way."

"Ha!" Chakwas let out a laugh. "You watch too many spy vids, Jenkins."

The Marine, Corporal Richard Jenkins, must have seen Shepard passing by, because he called out to her. "Ah, what do you think, Commander? We won't be staying on Eden Prime too long, will we? I'm itching for some real action."

"I sincerely hope you're kidding, Corporal," Doctor Chakwas looked at him disapprovingly, "Your 'real action' usually ends with me patching up crew members in the infirmary."

_Who in their right minds wishes for 'real action'? People get killed by that kind of thing. _Shepard looked the Corporal in the eyes. "You need to calm down, Corporal. A good soldier stays cool, even under fire."

Jenkins shrugged. "Sorry, Commander. But this waiting's killing me. I've never been on a mission like this before. Not one with a Spectre on board!"

Shepard raised an eyebrow. _Not many humans have even seen a Spectre, let alone been on a mission with one._ "Just treat this like every other assignment you've had and everything will work out."

"Easy for you to say. You proved yourself on Remnant and Torfan. Everybody knows what you can do." His eyes turned serious. "This is my big chance. I need to show the brass what I can do!"

_Oh boy._ "You're young, Corporal. You have a long career ahead of you. Don't do something stupid to mess it up."

"Don't worry, Ma'am. I'm not going to screw this up."

Shepard let out a sigh. "Just don't overdo it Corporal. Last time I went chasing after a Marine who got too far ahead of himself, we only found one survivor. Out of a whole platoon."

Jenkins gulped. "Sorry about bringing up Torfan, Commander. Must be a rough spot."

"It's okay, Corporal. Now, I should go. The Captain's waiting for me."

"Aye, Commander."

"Goodbye, Commander," said Chakwas, as Shepard turned the corner.

It was uncomfortable, thinking about Torfan. The things she saw inside that base._ Shepard put down another control-chipped slave-soldier with a shot from her rifle. The batarians were sending them in hordes, trying to slow the human soldiers down. The slave-soldiers, animalistic, slobbering creatures only a few steps above animals, lay in puddles of blood, the red, purple and blue coating the floor of the chamber. Corpses, torn apart by the explosive ammunition that was standard issue to the Marine Corps, littered the ground in visceral chunks. That had been as merciful a death as they had been able to give them. She looked over at the open cages against the walls. The people, human and alien, who had once occupied those cells lay in pieces, torn apart by their rabid fellow slaves, or blown apart by explosive collars as they tried to flee. Shepard fought down the urge to gag as she approached the _-Shepard stifled the bile that she felt welling up in her throat, and shuddered.

* * *

Shepard entered the spacious comm room, and twitched as she saw that the only occupant was the turian Spectre, Nihlus Kyrik, standing in front of the large holoprojector. Nihlus turned to face her.

"Commander Shepard. I was hoping you'd get here first. It will give us a chance to talk."

"The Captain said he'd meet me here."

Nodding, Nihlus said, "He's on his way." He turned and paced in front of the holoscreen. "I'm interested in this world we're going to - Eden Prime. I've heard it's quite beautiful. "

_What was Jenkins saying about it when I was on the way up to the CIC? Ah, right. _"They say it's a paradise."

"Yes… a paradise. Serene. Tranquil. Safe. Eden Prime has become something of a symbol for your people, hasn't it?" He turned to face the screen. "Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies outside of its own star cluster, but also protect them. But how safe is it, really?"

That raised several red flags in Shepard's mind. "Do you know something?" she asked.

Nihlus turned back to Shepard. "Your people are still newcomers to the greater galaxy, Shepard. The BETA that your people fought against are only a tiny fraction of what the galaxy has to offer. And the galaxy can be a very dangerous place. Is humanity truly ready for this?"

There was a _whir_ as the comm room doors opened, and a dark skinned man in a Navy BDUs walked in. Captain Anderson looked at the pair. "I think it's time we told the Commander what's really going on."

Nihlus nodded. "This mission is far more than a simple shakedown run."

_Of course Joker was right. Ugh. Alenko's probably going to eat his helmet._ "I figured there was something you weren't telling us."

Anderson looked at Shepard. "We're making a covert pick-up on Eden Prime. That's why we needed the stealth systems operational."

Shepard frowned. _That's certainly suspicious._ "There must be a reason you didn't tell me about this, sir."

"This comes down from the top, Commander. Information strictly on a need-to-know basis. A civilian construction team on Eden Prime unearthed some kind of beacon during an excavation. It was Prothean."

_Eh?_

Anderson continued. "This is big, Shepard. This is the first time humanity has found a working piece of Prothean technology. The destroyed ruins on Mars gave us nothing but questions. Problem is, Eden Prime doesn't have the facilities to handle something like this. We need to bring the beacon back to the Citadel for proper study."

"Obviously, this goes beyond mere human interests, Commander. This discovery could affect every species in Council space," said Nihlus.

_Oh. That kind of big, huh? What a great way to celebrate a promotion. At least it's not just our problem._ _Still, it begs the question…_ "So why didn't we keep the beacon for ourselves?"

"You humans don't have the best of reputations. Some species see you as selfish. Too unpredictable. Too independent. Even dangerous. It isn't looked upon favourably that humanity receives so many concessions from the Council despite not being a member of the Citadel."

Anderson chimed in. "Sharing that beacon will improve relations with the Citadel species. Plus, we need their scientific expertise. They know a lot more about the Protheans than we do."

Nihlus stepped forwards. "The beacon's not the only reason I'm here, Shepard."

Anderson looked at Nihlus, than back at Shepard. _I have a bad feeling about this. I can't read Anderson's colour. Not good not good._

"Nihlus wants to see you in action, Commander. He's here to evaluate you."

_What? Oh. That explains a lot. Or not. _"Guess that explains why I bump into him every time I turn around. But why is he evaluating me? We aren't part of the Citadel."

"The UN has been pushing for this for a long time. Humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy. We want more say with the Citadel Council. The Spectres represent the Council's power and authority." _Ok then? _"If they accept a human into their ranks, it shows that humanity is willing to play nice with the rest of the galaxy."

"Not many could have survived what you did at Mindoir. You showed a remarkable will to live - a particularly useful talent. Coupled with an incredible amount of self-sacrifice and the skill you displayed without having proper training in the matter. That's why I put your name forward as a candidate for the Spectres."

_Wait, what? _Theresa's mind went blank for a moment. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Why would a turian want a human in the Spectres? We aren't a Citadel species."

"I have the answer to that." Shepard turned back to the Captain. "The UN has been pushing for the Council to allow for concessions that would allow humanity to join the Citadel without compromising our own military and constitution. A human in the Spectres was one of many such requests."

Nihlus nodded in agreement. "Not all of the Citadel races resent humanity. Some of us see the potential of your species as a close ally. We see what you have offered and have to offer to the rest of the galaxy...and to the Spectres. We are an elite group. It's rare to find an individual with the skills we seek. I don't care that you're human, Shepard. I only care that you can do the job."

_Oh...That's a lot to take in._ _Right._ "I assume this is good for the UN?"

"Earth and the colonies need this, Shepard. We're counting on you." _No pressure...right?_

"I need to see your skills for myself, Commander. Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together."

Anderson pulled up is omni-tool, and clicked through a few files, before looking at Shepard. "You'll be in charge of the ground team. Secure the beacon and get it to the ship ASAP. Nihlus will accompany you to observe the mission."

_Sounds simple enough._ "Just give the word, Captain."

"We should be getting close to Eden-"

"_Captain!"_ interrupted Joker over the intercom._ "We've got a problem."_

The Captain's eyes narrowed. "What's wrong, Joker?"

"_Wide-band transmission from Eden Prime, sir. You better see this!"_

Anderson took a few steps towards the holoprojector. "Bring it up on screen."

The first thing Shepard heard were the distinct cracks of Army issue M8 Avenger rifles. On screen, several Army Troopers in forest-green armour fired off into the distance, and blue flashes and explosions blasted the ground around them. Another trooper, in the green-brown armour of a Marine, pushed the camera-wearer to the ground. "_Get down"_ she shouted, raising her rifle and hammering out a burst. The cameraman looked around frantically, as dirt and explosions filled the screen. Between each flash, Shepard could see Marines and Army Troopers firing frantically at...something. The camera turned again as someone pulled the camera to face them. Judging by the insignia that Shepard could barely make out, the man was an Army captain.

"_We are under attack! Taking heavy casualties. I repeat: heavy casualties! We can't - Argh!"_ There was an explosion behind him. "-eed evac! They came out of nowhere! We need -" The officer jolted and collapsed to the ground. _VRAAAAMMMM_. The Army Troopers and Marines all stopped firing, and looked up at the sky. An enormous black shape, like a giant hand, descended from the sky. engulfed in red lightning. Then the ground erupted, and the transmission cut to static.

"_Everything just cuts out after that, sir,"_ said Joker. _"No more transmissions detected from the planet. Just goes dead. There's nothing."_

Anderson frowned. "Reverse. Hold at 38.5"

The video rewound, and went still on the image of the colossal black hand descending from above. All three of them stood, silently for a few moments, taking in the sight.

Eyes still fixated on the screen, Anderson broke the silence. "Status report."

"_Seventeen minutes out, Captain."_

"Anything from the Eden Prime Fleet?"

The holo-projector lit up again, and a small blue sphere appeared on it. "I have forwarded the transmission the FLEETCOM at Arcturus Station. They report that transmissions are still proceeding as normal from the Eden Prime Fleet. No anomalous transmissions. It is the same with the colony itself. FTL comm traffic is normal. No anomalies detected."

"I see. Thank you, EDI." The blue orb winked out.

"Take us in, Joker. Fast and quiet." The Captain closed his eyes. "This mission just got a lot more complicated."

Nihlus nodded in affirmation. "A small strike team can move quickly without drawing attention. It's our best chance to secure the beacon."

"Grab your gear and meet us in the cargo hold." Nihlus gave a small nod and turned to leave the room.

Anderson turned back to Shepard, who was still transfixed with the image on the screen. "Tell Alenko and Jenkins to suit up, Commander. You're going in."

That snapped Shepard back to reality. _Oh boy._ She looked back at the screen.

* * *

"_Engaging stealth systems."_

_The sleek, white and grey ship flew over the planet, which from above looked like it was burning. Numerous flashing points of light could been seen in the space above the planet, far from the small ship. As it passed, wreckage, and tumbling, inactive vessels were visible; drifting along in their unstable orbits._

_The ship descended, as the air around it shimmered and faded, and the ship vanished from sight._

"Your team's the muscle in this operation, Commander. Go in heavy and head straight for the dig site." Shouted Anderson.

Shepard tapped her helmet, shaking that loose wire in her optics back into place. _Gotta fix that when we get back_.

Over the noise of wind rushing into the cargo hold, Shepard could here Alenko call out. "What about survivors, Captain?" His voice sounded concerned.

Anderson's face turned dark. "The beacon is your top priority. Anything else is a secondary objective. It'll be some time before Command can send reinforcements,so you'll mostly be on your own until we can extract you."

"_Approaching drop point one."_

A certain turian spectre stepped forwards, prepping the shotgun in his hands.

Jenkins eye's went wide behind the transparent visor of his helmet. "Nihlus? You're coming with us?"

The helmeted Spectre sighted down the shotgun, making final adjustments, only barely registering the Corporal's existence. "I move faster on my own."

Nihlus ran forwards, before leaping out the open cargo bay doors.

Anderson turned back to the human squad. "Nihlus will scout out ahead. He'll feed you status reports throughout the mission; otherwise, I want radio silence."

Shepard nodded. "We've got his back, Captain." _He'd better have ours,_ she added silently.

"The mission's yours now, Shepard." He rattled off a quick salute. "Good luck."

* * *

"_We are approaching drop point two."_

Shepard lead the two Marines down the ramp, and down into the dirt, rifle raised. She took a quick look around. The area was somewhat heavily forested. _Too much for the Mako. Going in without support...never thought I'd miss those TSF bays that frigates normally have._ Most frigates carried a pair of microTSFs, or a strike fighter escort. The Normandy, however, had been designed more along the lines of Citadel vessels, and lacked the specialised bays of human frigates, instead only having space for a single M35 Mako IFV.

Shepard brought up the area map. _About a klick to the dig site._ She waved her squadmates forward along the path. Avenger raised, she followed them down, using her jump-jets to slow the descent.

There was a stream up ahead. There were some strange creatures floating around it. They looked like cows crossed with balloons. _The heck are those?_

Alenko, not being an esper, still read her mind anyway. "What on earth are those?"

Jenkins let out a small laugh. "We call them gasbags. Don't worry, they're harmless."

Shepard let out the breath she'd been holding. Alenko just raised an eyebrow and said "ah."

"Alright, Marines, moving on."

"Aye aye, Commander." They both rattled out.

Shepard lead them up a small hill, following a wide, rock-sided path. When the reached the top, she raised a clenched fist, the signal to stop. Out in the distance, she could see Eden Prime's capital city, imaginatively named New Eden. The city was ablaze, and she could see explosions and fast-moving vehicles dotting the skyline. At the bottom, there was another wide dirt path, with several large rocks dotting it. Theresa turned to Jenkins, then pointed down the hill. The Marine nodded, and raised his weapon as he quietly started down the hill.

_Whiiiirrrrr._

When Jenkins reached the bottom, there was a buzzing sound from somewhere nearby, and several dog-sized drones flew into sight. Jenkins turned to face the source of the noise, which had changed into a rapid _BRRRT_, just in time for dozens of glowing projectiles to shred his shields, bore through his armour and tear their way into the young Marine's abdomen. He let out a short scream, and collapsed to the ground.

_Shitshitshit_. "JENKINS!" Before she realised, Theresa was sprinting down the hill. As she hit the bottom, she shifted her weight back, slipping onto her back and sliding into cover behind one of the rocks. There was a _thump_ behind her, as Alenko dove into cover a few metres back.

Alenko poked his head out, and Shepard nudged her head towards the drones. _Ready? _The LT nodded. _Good._

Shepard and Alenko rose out of cover in sync, weapons at the ready. She sighted in on the target, and squeezed the trigger. Within an instant, she felt several small impacts against her shields. The rifle _cracked_ three times; the shots buried themselves inside her target drone in an instant, before detonating with a muffled _boom_. A second short _boom_ told her that Alenko's was down as well. She double checked herself, looking for injuries. _Shields down to half. No wonder Jenkins went down so quick._ Then it hit her. _Shit, Jenkins!_

Theresa ran over and heard a groan. Propped against a rock, Jenkins had his one of his hands clamped against his stomach, trying to staunch the bleeding. Half of his armour was coated in the crimson of his blood. The other hand was desperately grasping for the medi-gel canister that was in a small pouch on his armour. The Corporal saw Shepard approaching, and looked up at her.

"Huh," he said through gritted teeth, his breathing laboured. "This must look pretty ironic, eh Commander?"_ Wheeze_ "A real 'I told you so' moment, isn't it? So much for 'real action'." He coughed, flecks of blood leaving his mouth.

Shepard crouched next to him. "Easy, Corporal. You're going to be fine." She pulled out a medi-gel canister, and reached down to remove Jenkin's chest plate and upper uniform. Underneath, he was really torn up. The flesh of his abdomen was shredded, and parts of his internal organs, which were badly damaged, were visible through the tears in the bloody flesh.

Shepard fought back the urge to gag as she flooded the man's guts with medi-gel. It took her several canisters, all of Jenkin's supply and most of her own, to completely stop the bleeding. It didn't take long for the gel to harden over the wounds, and Jenkin's breathing relaxed a bit.

"Ugh…. thanks, Commander. Thought I was a gonner."

"You might still be." Shepard shook her head. "We need to get you back to the _Normandy_, have Doctor Chakwas operate on you."

_KRACK!_ Gunfire sounded in the distance.

Jenkins shook his head grimly. "No, Commander. You can't carry me; it's too far. And the Captain ordered radio silence." The Corporal closed his eyes. "Leave me here. I've got my sidearm and a few grenades." He let out a pained laugh, before his face turned grim. "Besides, I can't really feel my legs, Commander. Just remember to come back for me."

_Oh._ Shepard could only nod. There were no words for something like that. She stood up, and gestured to Alenko, who silently placed a hand on Jenkins shoulder, before following after Shepard.

They advanced up the next hill, and didn't make it far before being fired upon by another swarm of drones. Shepard ducked behind a boulder, before returning fire. It didn't take the high impact weapons they carried to dispatch the drones.

As they crested the hill and moved back into the treeline, the radio lit up. "_I've got some burned out buildings here, Shepard. A lot of bodies. I'm going to check it out. I'll try to meet up with you at the dig site." _The transmission cut out.

They advanced quickly through the forest, but cautiously, weaving their way through the trees. Close by, Theresa heard gunfire.

* * *

Staff Sergeant Ashley Williams ran as fast as she could through the clearing, Predator sidearm in hand. She didn't look back, but she knew they were still chasing them. The bullets slamming into the ground around their feet and impacting against their barriers were probably the giveaway. A bullet slammed hard into the barriers protecting her feet, and she stumbled forwards, but managed to roll onto her back in time to put several bullets into the two drones following her. "Bhatia, get to cover!" She shouted.

Nearby, there were a pair of geth, dragging a kicking and screaming colonist over a waist-high metal pedestal. _Shuunk_. Williams' eyes went wide in horror._ Oh God oh God oh God! _The colonist went silent as the massive metal spike pierced his chest, before lifting the corpse three metres into the air. _WHAT THE HELL!_ she screamed internally.

She scrambled to her feet, running into cover behind the cracked and blasted wing of a downed F/A-8F Sylph. The rest of the bird was spread all the way down the hill. As she slid behind the wing, she pulled her M8 Avenger from its magnetic lock on her armour's backpack.

* * *

The gunfire nearby was distinctly that of an Avenger letting loose on automatic. _Someone human must be still alive._ "Alenko, over the ridge! Double time it!"

The Navy N7 Infiltrator and the UN Marine charged over the hill. Down below, there was a woman in Marine forest BDUs firing on what appeared to be, at range, a pair of mech. Nearby, crouched behind a large rock embedded in the ground, was another Marine, with the white cross symbol of a Marine medic emblazoned on the side of her helmet.

"Alenko, flank right. Hit them with a stasis warp."

Shepard darted left, firing her own modded Avenger from the hip. When she got near the first Marine, she tossed a disruptor grenade towards the hostile mechs, before sliding onto her back, rifle pointed at the mechs. It was unnecessary, as several shots from both Alenko and the other Marine put down both stunned mechs fairly quickly.

Shepard pulled herself into a crouch, weapon at the ready. Once she was sure that there were no more hostiles, she stood up, and lowered her rifle. The two Marines walked over. The one with the rifle on her back saluted. The other quickly followed suit.

"Staff Sergeant Ashley Williams, 8th Company, 2nd Battalion, 212th Marines." The gestured to the medic. "This is Lance Corporal Nirali Bhatia, from my platoon. Thanks for the save, ma'am."

_Williams...that name sounds familiar. And only two Marines? _She didn't press the issue. As she reloaded her weapon, she asked, "What happened here, Williams? FLEETCOM reported no anomalies, in both the colony and the Eden Prime Fleet."

"That would be because of the geth, ma'am."

"The geth?" exclaimed Alenko. "We're supposed to have friendly relations with the quarians and the geth!"

"Dunno. But they just attacked out of nowhere. A whole fleet of geth ships. They must have come for the beacon. The dig site was just over that rise." She pointed off into the distance. "The geth overwhelmed the Fleet and colony AIs and took over the communications systems. The only signals we could get out were by wideband radio." She paused. "Didn't think there were any of our ships left in orbit."

"We aren't from the Eden Prime Fleet. We dropped in from the UNS _Normandy._ We were supposed to make a covert pickup of the beacon for transport to the Citadel."

"Oh." She looked down sadly. "Understood, Commander. Just though some of our people might have survived."

_Okay. What other intel are we missing?_ "What can you tell me about the beacon?"

"It was Prothean, but that's all I know. Some civilian engineers dug it up a few days ago while they were excavating the area to extend the rail line."

"Understood. What about the rest of your unit, Williams?"

Her face turned dark. "Dead, ma'am. Our platoon was assigned to the area around the beacon when the geth hit. They managed to take us down piecemeal. Nirali and I are the only ones left. With communications more or less out, I don't know what happened to the rest of the company."

"I see. Damn, we could have used the reinforcements." She brought up her team roster in her headwire and added the Marines to her comm channel. "Williams, Bhatia, you're with us. Move out!"

The three Marines and one Navy Special Forces operator sprinted up the hill, their exoskeletons lightening the load enough to make the uphill run a quick sprint. Shepard urged them on, and they dashed over the crest, to within sight of the dig site. And almost immediately, they started taking fire. The four slid into cover behind several stone slabs that appeared to have been removed to the dig.

Shepard pulled another disruptor grenade from her rig, and signalled Alenko and Williams. The two sent back affirmatives. Shepard popped up quickly, and tossed the grenade at the feet of one of the geth platforms. The grenade initiated, triggering a brief EMP that dazzled the geths systems. Within a second, Williams had also popped up, and began hammering the stunned geth, while Alenko hit another with a focused biotic pulse, sending it flying. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the medic, Bhatia, cracking off rounds with her sidearm. The medic ducked back down to reload. Absently, Theresa noted the model of the pistol. _Ah, an M91. Mum had one of those._

Alenko tossed the third geth that had emerged from the ruins into a wall, where it was blasted from existence by Williams. With the immediate area clear, Shepard motioned the Marine into the ruins. Within the flat-sided pillars were a set of concentric stone rings, with a depression in the centre. _Hmm?_

Williams took a quick look around. "Commander, the beacon's gone. The scientists must have moved it."

"Where."

Williams nodded in the direction of the steep hill behind the ruins. "The train station was just up that way."

"Understood. Let's move."

Once they reached the top of the ramp, they could see a few small prefabricated buildings. One was collapsed and half on fire, while the others appeared to be locked down. Shepard got a slightly tingly feeling from one of the buildings.

_Vrrr. Thunk._ _Growl_.

Shepard's eyes moved to follow the source of the sound. There were four more of those giant spikes to the left of the buildings. The spikes slid down, and a person, or what used to be people, fell down from each. Each of the glowing blue-black human shaped things growled, and charged, arms raised to grab at them.

_Shit what are those things?_ "Squad, open fire!"

_Crackcrackcrackcrackcrack. Vwoosh._ One emptied pistol, two overheated rifle heatsinks, and a biotic throw later, the cybernetic zombies were down.

Once the things stopped moving, Shepard racked the Avenger's charging handle, rotating out the overheated sink. "Any idea what those were?"

Alenko knelt over one of the corpses, taking some scans with his omni-tool. "Looks partly organic. Can't be sure, but the traces of DNA look human… this might have been one of the scientists. But it's like the husk of a person."

_What the hell?_ "Alright, we need to know what's going on. The beacon has to the reason for this attack." She looked back over at the sealed building. "Bhatia." She pulled a canister from her kit.

"Yes, Commander?"

Shepard handed the container to the medic. "There are people still inside that building. Take this omni-gel to breach the door, and give them some help. Alenko, go with her. Get whatever intel you can out of them, and relay it back to us. Once you're done, link up with us."

"Aye, Commander." The pair ran off towards the buildings.

The radio chimed again. _"Shepard. I'm approaching the tram station."_

_Better warn him about these 'husks'. _"Nihlus, this is Shepard. I'm breaking radio silence. Don't know how, or why, but the geth are turning their prisoners into some kind of tech-zombies. We're almost at the station. Wait for us and we'll provide support."

There was a pause. _"Understood, Commander. Nihlus out."_

"Alright, let's move, Williams."

* * *

"_Nihlus, we're in position on the ridge. On your go."_

Nihlus shifted cover to behind the next stack of crates. _I feel like I'm going to regret accepting that request to evaluate a human for the Spectres._

"Understood, Shepard. Moving."

"_Hold up, we have movement on the platform…. looks like another turian….I see. Sergeant Williams says that they're are no turians on Eden Prime. Possible hostile."_

"Possibly. Going to approach the target."

"_Affirmative. Will stay on watch."_

Nihlus stepped from cover, rifle raised towards the grey armoured turian standing on the platform with their back turned. He wasn't sure what gave it away. The grey armour with violet highlights, the distinctive cybernetics projecting out of said armour?

"Saren?" He lowered his rifle in alarm. The other turian, Saren, turned to face him, cybernetic plating shining against the dull grey of his armour.

"_Nihlus, what's going on?"_

Ignoring Shepard, he straightened up. "This isn't your mission, Saren. What are you doing here?"

"The Council thought you could use some help on this one." Saren placed his talon on Nihlus' shoulder, and stepped past him.

"_Nihlus, I can't get a read on his colour. Get away from him, NOW!"_

Flags started triggering in his mind, but he kept calm. _Something's wrong here._

"It's bad. I wasn't expecting to find the geth here."

"Don't worry, I've got it under control."

"_Nihlus, GET DOWN!"_

Instinctively, the Spectre dove for cover, as a bullet cracked past his head and into a crate. He was still trying to process what had happened when he heard the order.

"_Open fire! Cover Nihlus!"_

_CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK._

Heavy calibre rounds began raining down on the platform, detonating wherever they struck.

"_Dammit. The bastard's gone… shit! Geth on the platform!"_

_What?_ He looked around quickly. Saren was gone, and there were geth platforms advancing from the ramp that led down to the trams.

_Spirits._ He pulled himself into a crouch, and lifted the rifle to his shoulder. It didn't take much for the combined firepower to put them all down.

Once they were all down, he crouched behind a crate, back to the ramp. Looking towards the hill, he could see Shepard and three human Marines advancing down the hill. _She must have picked up some survivors. _They stopped halfway down, and fired a few rounds each into something along the way.

As they reached the bottom, he asked "Shepard?"

"Husks on the hill," she explained.

"I see."

The Commander stepped forwards, hands on her heavily modded rifle. _I can see how this looks._

"Who was that, Nihlus?" She asked accusingly. "You seemed pretty familiar."

He clicked his mandibles. "Saren Arterius. _Spectre_ Saren Arterius. He's a friend. Or rather, he was. He tried to kill me. I'll try to explain more later. We don't have time, he's probably got the beacon already. I'll try and explain more once we're back aboard the Normandy."

"Right." They started towards the ramp.

"Wait!" A voice peeked out from behind a pile of crates over on the corner of the platform.

A human in a work uniform poked his head out from behind the crates, only to find the barrels of five weapons pointed at him. His hands quickly shot into the air.

Shepard took charge. "Who are you?"

The worker adjusted the beanie on his head. "The name's Powell. I work on the docks."

"How did you survive?" she asked suspiciously, hand on her sidearm.

"I uuh...I ducked back here to catch some Z's when the attack started. Y'know, long, boring shift, right?"

One of the Marines, a female, shifted her stance, clearly furious. "You survived because you were _lazy_? _While we fought and died out here!? Even the scientists tried to fight back! _I should kill you where you stand, you _coward!"_ Her hand went to her pistol.

A hand caught her before she could raise the weapon. "William's, _cool it._ He isn't worth killing."

Powell had his hands in the air again, very obviously panicking. "G-g-go down that ramp. The tram'll take you to a small spaceport. They moved the beacon there this morning."

Shepard turned to the others. "Let's go."

* * *

The four humans and one turian turned the corner on the ramp, and immediately began taking fire from a trio of geth on the level below. They were dispatched very quickly, using Shepard's EMP and one of Nihlus' grenades, and the fact that they had the high ground.

As the group reached the bottom, the transport train slid into the station with a _hiss_, and a group of geth stepped off it, opening fire as they slowly advanced towards cover.

Shepard, who was at the front of the group, shouted the others into cover, before using the thrusters built into her armour to accelerate her dive. She hit the ground hard, the air forced out of her. She gasped for breath as she pulled herself up. In the background, she heard Alenko shout, "They've got portable barrier generators! Hitting it with a disruptor!"

Shepard stuck her head up just enough to see Alenko toss a disruptor charge at the white coloured geth. Or at least, he tried to. As soon as he stood up, a withering hail of fire tore down his barriers, with several shots piercing his armour before Lance Corporal Bhatia pulled him back down and immediately began patching his wounds.

The channel opened on her comm, and a quiet voice spoke. _"He'll be okay, Commander. Light wounds."_

_That's good._ She could feel the colour of his pain. It was tinged with anger and self-loathing. _At least he'll be able to get back up later._ She winced. _Unlike Jenkins._

She shook away the thought, and her mind returned to the battle. She looked over to where Nihlus and Williams were crouched. The turian was switching out his ammo module. He tilted his head up to face her. She used hand signals to try and get Nihlus to cover her while she tossed a disruptor grenade. Williams nodded in affirmation. however, instead of confirming, Nihlus just gave a puzzled look.

She opened a comm channel. "Williams, Nihlus. Cover me while I toss a disruptor over. I'm running out of these, so I need to make it count."

"Aye aye, Commander." "Affirmative."

Shepard pulled the grenade from its pouch. "On my count." She primed the charge. "Three...two...one. Go!"

The three stood up in unison, Williams and Nihlus hammering away at the geth, while Shepard tossed the charge. The disruptor grenade hit the ground and slid past the barrier, detonating just behind the white-armoured geth. The pulse disabled the geth, taking down the barrier in the process.

"Now!" The Marine and Spectre didn't need the invitation, and they tore down the stunned geth in a hail of gunfire.

Shepard took a quick look around. "Okay, everyone onto the train before more show up."

They climbed the ramp onto the freight train, Bhatia supporting the wounded Alenko. The train was divided into a large number of small sections by short dividers. _Would be a bad place for a gunfight. Too much cover, it would be extremely drawn out._

As if irony had cursed her, several geth platforms rose from behind the dividers further down the open-topped train. The group quickly ducked for cover. _Ah, dammit. We don't have time for this!_

"Nihlus, Williams; fix bayonets. Cover-to-cover." She reached to her back and pulled her custom-made mod from its mount on her kit. She affixed it to her Avenger. "I'll provide sniper support. Alenko, try and hack them, if you can."

Several affirmative shouts sounded out. Shepard stood up and mounted the rifle on her cover. About sixty metres down, a pair of geth stood, their oddly shaped rifles flashing.

She sighted in, and took the flashlight head off of one of them. "Move up!" she shouted, without even pulling herself from the scope. She fired off another shot, but the train shook, and the shot went wide. She cursed under her breath and readjusted her aim. _It's hard to hit these guys when I can't get any readings off of them._

She fired off a third shot, which ricocheted off the shoulder of the other geth. _Beepbeepbeepbeep_. The weapon locked out as the heat sinks overheated. _Shit._ She ducked back down and cocked the charging handle, rotating out the sink, before popping back up.

Only, she found the the target was not in sight, and Staff Sergeant Williams was in its place, ramming her rifle into something lying on the ground. _Well, that works._ There was a flash of movement further ahead. She sighted in, and saw another white armoured geth aiming a rocket launcher at Williams.

"Shit, Williams, get down!"

"What?" The rocket detonated against the divider that Williams was behind, the blast throwing her against the next divider.

"Dammit. Bhatia, Williams is down. Nihlus, help me provide cover. Go!"

Shepard fired off several low-powered shots to pin down the geth, while Bhatia rose from behind her divider to run over to the downed Williams. Nihlus stood up and let loose a long burst of fire down the length of the cargo train.

As Bhatia reached Williams position, the white geth rose again and launched another rocket at her. "Incoming rocket!" yelled someone. Bhatia saw it coming, and dove to protect Williams from the blast.

_Voosh._ _Kaboom_. Instead of the flood of pain she had been expecting, there was only a slight chill. Bhatia looked up, to see Lieutenant Alenko standing over her, arms raised, body engulfed in a bright blue glow as he forced the barrier to stay active against the explosion.

He looked down at her, the strain clearly showing through his visor. "You alright, Doc?"

She nodded in affirmation, and silently brought up both Alenko's and Williams' vitals on her internal computer. The Staff Sergeant was registering a concussion and severe armour damage, while Alenko was on the verge of exhaustion as a result of both maintaining the barrier and the fact that his wounds weren't fully healed. Medigel greatly sped up recovery, but it couldn't work miracles.

_Crack._ _BRRRRTT._ Outside the barrier, Bhatia could hear the now easily recognisable report of Shepard's custom rifle, and the roar of Nihlus' Vindicator. It continued for a short while, before falling silent.

"We're clear." The barrier fell, and Alenko fell to one knee, clearly in pain. "Doc, stabilise Alenko and Williams. I'll take point."

Nihlus was alert, watching the platforms above and the ground below as Shepard moved to the front of the train. _Strange. Given the size of the attack and the importance of the beacon, I would have thought there would be more geth. Wait. No. A smash and grab like that would be too obvious. If Saren really is working with them, he'd be more subtle. Use a large enough distraction to draw away all attention from the objective._

"Nihlus, I've found the controls."

Nihlus looked down at his rifle. "Good. Get us to the spaceport."

* * *

_Implants glinting in the red-stained sunlight, Saren stormed down the staircase. On the platform below, several geth troopers were finishing off the last surviving dock workers. They'd put up a good fight, but it had been futile, their reservist weapons and training insufficient to hold against the dedicated geth attack. It was the same story all over the planet. _Foolish._ He turned to the geth as he walked onto the landing pad. "Have the other units deploy the charges."_

_He stepped up to the beacon, the four metre tall tower of ancient technology. The wonder of it, the compulsion to it, drew him forwards. He felt the gentle tug as the ancient device pulled him into the air, and the knowledge flowed into him._

* * *

_WRAAAMP._

There was an echoing roar from the sky, as the massive black shape took off in a burst of red lightning. The group watched it lift off.

"What is that thing?" exclaimed Williams.

Alenko kept looking at. "Look at the size of that thing. It's got to be at least the size of an Assault Carrier."

"Come on, Marines. We need to move."

The five of them climbed off the train onto the station platform. Shepard led at the front, with the wounded Alenko and Williams supporting each other down, while Bhatia and Nihlus brought up the rear.

The first thing they saw as the stepped off the train was an odd device, all wires and metal spheres inside a skeletal metal frame. Shepard halted the team with a raised fist, and they gathered around the device. She crouched next to it, studying the design. _Can't tell the design. Doesn't match human or Citadel designs. Doesn't quite match the quarian design architecture that I know. Hmm…_ _Is that…_ "Oh crap, it's a bomb," she mumbled under her breath.

"Commander?" Williams had a puzzled expression on her face. "What is that?"

"Ah, give me a sec here." Shepard put her rifle down, and leaned in to examine the device more closely, before patching her internal circuitry into it through her omni-tool. _That is not a lot of time. _She pulled up several of the disarming sequences that she kept store in her head, and quickly ran them against a simulation of the devices' detonation code. _Ah, that'll work._

She yanked out one of the exposed wires, and made a few taps on her omni-tool. A burst of electricity shot into the cable, and the small screen on its upper surface went dead.

Nihlus stood over her, examining her handiwork. "Shepard, what did you just do?"

She tapped again on her omni-tool, transferring the data to Nihlus. "Disarmed this bomb. It's nuclear." The other's eyes went wide, and Nihlus' mandibles hung open for a moment, before closing.

"I see. So what did you send me?"

Shepard picked up her modded M8 and rose to her feet. "The radiation signature and the disarming sequence. There was about fifteen minutes left on the timer. It'll take about ten seconds to disarm each. You've got better sensors than us, so I need you to check if there are anymore nearby."

"Got it." He tapped away on the holographic screen of his omni-tool. "I'm detecting faint gamma radiation from four sources within a fifty metres. Nothing beyond that. It's safe say that all the nukes are in the spaceport. Saren's probably trying to cover his tracks."

"Understood. Bhatia, you're with me. We'll take the two northern charges. Nihlus, you can handle the other two, right?"

The turian Spectre opened a compartment on his Vindicator and switched out its current mod. "Don't worry, Commander. I can handle it."

Ashley limped forwards. "What about me and the LT, ma'am?"

She looked between the two of them. Williams hadn't had much time to recover from her dance with a missile, and neither had Alenko, whose breathing was laboured.

"You two stay put. You're both in no condition to fight."

"Yes, Commander." Both were coloured with a twinge of dejection.

Alenko had his eyes down, but he reached for his pack and pulled a few magazines and a pair of power cells from it. Then he handed his Avenger to Bhatia, who had been using a sidearm since the beginning of the battle. "Here. You'll probably need this more than me." He divided the mags and cells between Shepard and Bhatia, before stepping back and rattling off a tired, but sharp, salute.

Shepard returned the salute, before turning to the Marine Medic and turian Spectre who were still able to move and fight. "We have twelve minutes. Move out!"

* * *

_11:38_…._11:30_

Shepard bolted up the ramp, peeking her head past the railing-walls as they approached the top. And then immediately ducked back down as a missile flew over her head. And then another. And another. _They're really bringing out the big guns now, aren't they._

She signalled Nirali to hold position, before sprinting up the ramp and jumping back into a slide and triggering her thrusters. She skidded along the ground until her momentum caused her to collide with a crate, safely behind cover. The moment the geth stopped firing on her, she sent a comm burst to Bhatia. Once the medic was moving, Shepard lifted herself over the crate and sent a slow but steady stream of fire along the balcony towards the geth, drawing their attention away from Bhatia.

The rocket trooper that stepped from cover to advance was her first target. The first few shots battered its shields into oblivion, while the following bullets tore into its chest, detonating and spraying white lubricant and metal fragments everywhere. The second one put up a hexagonal kinetic barrier to protect itself. Shepard fired off the rest of the magazine into the shield, to little effect. She ducked back down, dropping the empty mag and racking the heat sinks.

"Commander!"

She pulled herself out along the side of the crate, and almost smashed into a black armoured geth that stepped past. Reacting on finely honed instinct, her hand went to the quick-release strap on her belt. Within the space of a second, the heavy, titanium-steel monkey wrench was buried in the geth's optic. Without even blinking, she dragged the shotgun armed geth down behind the crate, and proceeded to beat its metal skull in. _Clank. Clank. Thunk. CLANK._ She could barely hear the report of Bhatia's rifle over the rush of adrenaline.

Breathing heavily, Shepard extracted the wrench from where it had gone through the geth's head and impacted against the metal panelling of the platform. It took here a few moments to remember that she was still in combat. Sliding the wrench back into its place on her belt, she picked up her carbine. A rocket flew past. _Right, time._

"Bhatia, cover me. I'm going for the bomb"

"Aye aye, Commander."

Bhatia took a crouch and began firing while Shepard sprinted forwards, weapons blazing. She took down another two rocket troopers before slamming back first into a stack of crates. She looked to her right, and found herself staring straight at the nuclear demolition charge. Bhatia was still firing, so Shepard took the opportunity to work away at the disarming sequence. All she had to do was plug her omni-tool into the bomb and it was as good as done.

The omni-tool beeped, and Shepard stood back up and rested her back against the crates. "Nihlus, one bomb down, moving to the next one. How are things on your end." She could hear the echo of gunfire from further away.

"_The first one is disarmed, but I've run into heavy resistance. Shouldn't be too much trouble."_

"Got it. Bhatia, move up." She spun, and hammered off a volley into another rocket trooper. _There are a lot of rocket troopers here. They must have anticipated a large TSF deployment. Huh. Haven't seen any TSFs yet. Maybe they were all deployed around New Eden and the other cities?_

"Clear, Commander."

"Affirmative. Moving."

Shepard followed along the wall of the platform, weapon at the ready. On the wall at the end of the platform, there was a sign pointing down to the left. _Landing platform is that way. Beacon should be there if Saren hasn't made off with it yet. _She double checked her sensors. _The last bomb should be there as well. _She approached slowly.

* * *

Bhatia watched as the Commander rounded the corner, shouted a short curse, and dove away as fast as she could. There was a flash, and something exploded at Shepard's feet.

"Geth set up a mobile weapons platform! The way down is blocked! Fall back!"

* * *

Nihlus heard the blast, and poked his head past the crate. "Shepard, what's going on?"

"_Geth weapons platform blocking our path!"_

Nihlus looked down at the smoking wreckage that had previously been geth. "I've disabled my second objective. I'll converge on your position."

"_Affirmative."_ Several gunshots cracked off in the distance. "_Shit, we've got more geth coming up from the platform."_

Nihlus rounded the corner and turned onto the walkway that led down to the platform entrance. He could see Shepard and the medic pinned down by a pair of geth rocket troopers and some rifle-armed platforms. He stopped behind one of the support struts for the wall at the end of the platform, and readied his rifle.

"Shepard, be ready. I'm about to-"

"_Commander, we've got this."_

Several pistol shots rang out, and one of the geth fell. The rocket troopers turned to face the oncoming threat. There was a short chirping sound, and the geth's rocket launcher shorted out and exploded, taking both platforms with it.

Nihlus took the opportunity to hit one of the regular grey platforms with a concussive round, the force slamming it at high velocity into a crate. The other two went down in a hail of contained gunfire.

"_They're down, Commander."_

"_Alenko, Williams, what are you doing up here? I ordered you two to stand down."_

"_We're okay, ma'am. We've were listening to your comm-chatter. Thought you could use the assistance."  
_

Nihlus sighed. _Humans._ "Shepard, we're running out of time. We need to take down that platform."

"_Affirmative. It doesn't seem to be moving this way. Might be set to attack on sight only."_

"Possibly. Ideas?"

There was a pause. _"I'll get in close, draw its attention. Williams, Bhatia, Nihlus; alternate fire on it. Alenko, you can't use your biotics, so run a hack on its weapons systems."_

_"Aye aye."_

_"Roger."_

* * *

"Ready?" Four comm-bursts told Theresa that the answer was yes. "Okay. Go!"

Nihlus and Bhatia popped out of cover, pouring fire down of the armature. The moment the mech's giant head began to turn towards her squadmates, Shepard bolted from cover, sniper-modded carbine cracking off high-powered shots into the geth's shields before it overheated. As the geth turned to face her, she tossed her last disruptor grenade at the ground beneath its four legs.

The EMP went off, the invisible force tearing into the machines shields. But judging by the bullets detonating in the air around the platform, the shields were still up. Shepard fell fired off a few more shots, as the geth finished turning its head.

The cannonfire never came, as sparks flew from the gun and the platform jolted. Out of the corner of her eye, Shepard could see Alenko standing half out of cover, omni-tool outstretched. She raised her carbine and fired off a few more shots before ducking behind the crate that Bhatia was taking cover behind.

Nihlus' shouted over the gunfire. "Shepard, it's shields are down to about sixty percent! We don't have the firepower to bring it down!"

"Commander, it's overriding the hack. It's weapons are coming back online!"

"Alenko, run another hack! Williams, Nihlus, draw its fire!" Next to her, Bhatia had her rifle up, futilely snapping off shot after shot. Sheltered to her left and right, Williams and Bhatia fired off as many grenades and concussive rounds as they could.

The armature opened fire on Williams, forcing her to duck back behind the support strut. It's target lost, it rotated its head-turret back to Shepard. She felt a tingle in the back of her head. As it was about to fire, the radio lit up. "Commander Shepard, get your team clear. You have five seconds."

_What? "_Everyone down!"

_BRRRRTTT._

Shepard dragged the medic down behind the crate as the metal plating around the geth armature erupted. The surface of the platform was torn up as dozens of cannon rounds ripped into it from above. The armature fell apart as its armour dissolved into vapour from the sheer number of rounds hitting it.

Shepard's eyes searched the red sky for the source of the bombardment. Above, several blurs shifted in and out, before decloaking into a shape she recognised. _F-62 Yukikaze IIs. Marines, not the Army garrison._

"_Commander Shepard, this is Lieutenant Taylor, 254th Battalion, off the UNS _Coral Sea._ We've been tasked with assisting you."_

Theresa let out the breath that she'd been holding. Pulling herself to her feet, she took a look at the surfie's handiwork. The whole section of platform was shredded, and there was nothing remaining of the geth except for metal fragments and a few shredded cables.

She looked up at the TSFs hovering in the air around the station, and gave them a quick thumbs up. She checked the chronometer. _Two minutes left. _

"Thanks for the assist. Stay on overwatch while we disable the last bomb."

"_Bomb, Commander?" _

_"_The geth left nukes around the station. Probably to destroy the evidence."

Rifle ready, she moved slowly towards where the armature had been. Past the gate, hidden behind a pile of crates, sat the final nuke. She signalled the team to take up positions around the stack, while she crouched next to the bomb and plugged her omni-tool into it. _And three...two...one.._The omni-tool chimed. "And we're clear."

Standing up, she motioned the rest of the team forwards. "Taylor, we're moving to the landing platform."

"_Understood."_

"Commander, I see the beacon," said Williams, before she dropped into cover. "Geth on the platform."

"Nihlus, move up with me. Alenko, throw that one off the platform. Williams, cover fire."

Shepard rushed down the ramp, hammering out a burst before ducking behind a storage container. The first geth went down as Nihlus took up a firing position on the opposite side of the platform, while the second fell to a rifle volley from up on the balcony. Another went flying as Alenko sent it flying with a blue ball of biotic energy.

At the edge of the platform, she could see the four metre tall tower of the ancient Prothean beacon, engulfed in an etheric green glow. "Is it supposed to be doing that?" she asked absently.

"It wasn't doing that when they dug it up," said Bhatia.

"I see."

Spotting movement in the corner of her eye, Shepard turned her rifle and sighted in. _More of them. Dammit. _"We've got husks incoming."

As they fired off volleys into the horde of cybernetically reanimated colonists and soldiers, Shepard noticed something in the corner of her eye. She'd forgotten to shut down the timer she'd been using to keep track of the nukes. It was still counting down. "5...4...3...2...1…"

Nihlus shouted over the cacophony. "Shepard, massive radiation spike. Coming from the colony."

Shepard's eyes went wide. _No. That can't be right. We shut down the nukes._

She stared out into the distance, searching. Far off, she could see the burning spires of New Eden.

There was a bright flash, and the colony was engulfed in white. Then everything went dark as her visor polarised. _Dammitdammitdammitdammit…._

Above, she could hear something sputtering and choking. Through the black tint of her visor, she could see the four Marine TSFs drop from the sky as the nuclear induced EMP fried the magnetic control systems of their engine exhausts.

"Shit, everyone brace yourselves!"

And then the shockwave hit. Shepard fell to a crouch as the powerful, buffeting wind dragged at her armour, felt the force of it as it tried to bowl her over. She couldn't see how the others were faring, half-blinded and deafened by the roar of the wind blowing over her. _Fuck. We couldn't save them._

The air went silent. and she groggily pulled herself to her feet as the visor depolarised. In the distance, the forests of Eden Prime were burning, and the city of New Eden...was almost completely levelled. Only a few of the thickest towers were still standing, the rest reduced to rubble.

She looked around the platform. Nihlus was tapping his metal plated skin, while up on the balcony, the rest of the team were helping each other off the ground.

She tapped her omni-tool a few times, to find that the tool was still functioning inside its armoured casing on her wrist.

"Normandy, this is Shepard. We've secured the beacon, but the colony...is lost. We need pick up from my coordinates."

As she spoke into the radio, she heard an arrhythmic thumping coming from behind her.

"All of this, all this death, for that DAMNED THING!" screamed a furious Ashley Williams. The wounded Staff Sergeant limped towards the arcane machine, Bhatia's large-calibre M91 sidearm in her hands, pointed at the beacon.

Shepard turned to face the rightfully angry Marine, and was about to stop her when the beacon's glow grew brighter, and Williams was dragged by an invisible force towards the beacon.

With no time to stop and think, Shepard leapt at Williams, grabbing the struggling Marine and throwing her as far as she could against the pull. As Williams flew clear, she felt herself being pulled. She floated into the air in front of the beacon, arms forced into a spread-eagled position.

The beacon pulsed, and her mind was flooded with images, and all she could think was _The fuck is this? _Some kind of electronic hardware. _The fuck is that?_ A metallic screech_ The fuck are those? _A fleshy mouth full of teeth screaming into the void._ What the hell was on here that would make it worth all of this? _The beacon let out a warble.

There was an explosion, and everything went black.

* * *

**Codex: Weapons, Armour and Equipment:**

**Human Small Arms:**

_Human designed weapons differ significantly from their Citadel designed counterparts. While Citadel firearms use shavers to shear off appropriately size rounds from a metal block, human weapons use pre-manufactured bullets, loaded with explosive compounds. So while a mass effect firearm can supply thousands of shots before reloading is required, human magnetic accelerators require their magazines to be replaced frequently. _

_However, one innovation provided by human weapons is in the design of their heat sink systems. The standard issue M8 Avenger series uses three heat sinks in a rotary sequence, with each sink being used to capacity before being rotated out to cool. While this system does not allow for as many shots overall before overheating, it does allow a more consistent rate of fire; a significant limitation of Citadel designed weapons is that once the heat sink is used to capacity, the weapon is unable to be used at all. This innovation is slowly finding its way into the designs of more contemporary weapons designers._

* * *

**Well, that's finally done. Longest chapter I've written so far...although compared to some other prolific writers, 10000 words in three weeks really isn't much.**

**Review, comment, etc. I couldn't think of anything to write a codex entry about, so if you want an explanation for something, leave it in the review.**

**Anyway, signing off.**

**EDIT: I'm going to add answers to questions here. It'll be a while before I can get a new chapter out, so just check back here at some point.**

**ferduran: Right. So humans have adopted some Citadel tech in the last 30 years. Omni-tools are used as well, tools. Higher computing functions are done using the inhead hardware, while interfacing and physical utilities (such as throwing fireballs at people) is done using the omni-tool. K-barriers are in. Normandy is pretty much the same but with an optical cloak system. TSFs have barriers and mass effect cores. Humans still use their own weapons. Also for your previous question: larger UN ships, like battleships and carriers use G-Element cores, since switching them to eezo cores would be extremely cost prohibitive. Frigates and destroyers, not as much eezo is needed, so it frees up G-Elements for bigger ships.**

**Law77: Would you have all your giant robots defending a dinky little spaceport in the middle of the woods or out in the major city that's being invaded? At the end a TSF flight does appear...EMPs + magnetically controlled engine thrust = problem. Don't worry, they'll be showing up more later.**


	12. The Keep

**Hey guys, it's been quite a while. Life's been busy, and it's been hard to find the motivation to write for the last few months. So here's what I've managed to write in that time. Not much, but it's something.**

* * *

_24th July, 2183. Unknown._

_She put a hand to her head, massaging the slowly receding ache._

"_It doesn't look good, Shepard. Nihlus is dead, and the beacon was destroyed. The Council is going to want answers."_

"_Captain, we're on approach to the Citadel." Came the voice over the intercom._

_Screeching. That horrific roar. The groan of machines malfunctioning. The flash of flesh and teeth. A sickeningly organic shreek. Circuits flickering through their states. The flash._

Her eyes jolted open. And then slammed shut as the blindingly bright light shone through. She blinked rapidly, trying to process the influx of images into something she could comprehend. _This ceiling...unfamiliar...but also very familiar._

"Doctor, she's awake." A woman's voice. Familiar.

"You okay, ma'am?" A man. Also familiar.

A grey-haired woman stood over her, shining a torch into each of her eyes, causing her to blink.

"Pupil dilation. No concussion." The woman turned back to her. "You had us worried there, Commander. How are you feeling?"

Commander Theresa Shepard groaned as pushed herself into a sitting position, and immediately regretted the decision, as her head began to pound. She used a hand to massage her temple as she turned to face the other occupants of the room. _Doctor Chakwas?_

"Where am I? And how long was I out?"

The man, sitting on a chair next to the bed, spoke up. _Kaidan Alenko_. "You're back on the Normandy, ma'am. You've been out for about sixteen hours."

"It was my fault," the younger woman interjected. _Ashley Williams?_ "I must have triggered the beacon's security field when I approached it. You had to push me out of the way." Williams shook her head. "I'm sorry, Commander. I lost my cool. I…" she paused. "I don't like losing people."

Chakwas looked at her. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Sergeant. We still don't know that that was what set it off. And now we'll never know…"

Noticing the confusion on the XO's face, Alenko stood up, and paced around the room, as if deciding how to phrase his answer. His expression changed to one of defeat after a few seconds.

"The beacon exploded, Commander. System overload. The explosion knocked you out cold. Williams and I had to carry you back to the ship." The images came back to her. _Williams with her weapon out, then being dragged into the air. The air was on fire._ Shepard blinked.

"Why the Normandy though? Eden Prime would have had adequate medical facilities."

Chakwas gave her a worried look. "Nothing we couldn't handle on the ship, Commander. The facilities at the colony would have been far too overtaxed as it is."

Then it hit her. _Dammit._ She bit back the anger. _Remain calm. Remain calm._

"And I had to put you all through anti-radiation treatments. Which isn't particularly easy to do when two of you patients are unconscious, and one of those in a critical state."

"I see. Thank you." It took her a few seconds._ Two?_ "Wait, Doc, what do you mean two patients?"

Chakwas didn't say anything, and just nodded towards the other end of the room.

Shepard turned. In the place of the third bed that would normally occupy the _Normandy'_s medbay, was a large glass and steel capsule, with a green cross stenciled on the side. Along the edge, she could make out a name. _Richard L. Jenkins_, _Cpl_. The name was followed by a string of alphanumerics that made her head hurt to read.

"You saved him, Shepard. You should feel proud of that."

Shepard lowered her eyes. "But we couldn't save his home."

Alenko stood next to the capsule and placed a hand on it. "There was nothing we could have done, Commander. We were too far away from where those nukes were set. The fact that we saved anyone is a miracle." He patted the little grey-blue blob that she hadn't noticed on top of the capsule, before turning to face Shepard.

Williams stood and saluted. "Thanks, Commander."

There was a chime from the medbay doors, and the light on the door controls turned green as they slid open.

"So how's my XO doing?" asked Captain Anderson as he stepped into the room. He was wearing his dress uniform, the long sleeves hiding his prosthetic arm. Behind the Captain, the turian Spectre, Nihlus, strode in, taking in the presence of the humans in the room.

Chakwas handed him a datapad. "Perfectly fine, Captain, aside from some unusual brain activity."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Doctor?"

"Nothing harmful, Commander. Just unusual. It was as if you were dreaming."

Anderson crossed his arms. "Commander. What do you remember?"

Theresa put a hand to her head, trying to pull back those vague images. "I think it was a vision. Like the beacon put something into my head. Death, destruction, fire. There's a little bit more, but that's all I get."

"I see. Doctor, Nihlus and I need to speak to the Commander in private."

Chakwas nodded. "I'll be in the next room if you need me." The back door hissed shut.

Alenko and Williams stood to attention and saluted. Williams glanced at Shepard, before leaving. Alenko, however, stepped over to Jenkins' medical capsule, picking up the small blob of what looked to be feathers and placing it on his shoulder. The blob shifted slightly, and adhered to the man's back as he headed towards the door.

"Uh, Lieutenant? What's that?"

He stopped. "Oh, right. Commander, this is Flittering Dreamwalker. He's a Fythern. They found him with Jenkins; apparently he kept Jenkins awake until Doctor Chakwas could get to him."

The blob on his shoulder resolved itself into the shape of a small four-legged dragon, about the size of a small cat. It was covered in blue-grey feathers, and its small snout twitched slightly, making a small purring sound. _Was that a yawn?_

Shepard raised an eyebrow as Alenko carried the ball of blue feathers out of the med bay. She turned back to the Captain and the Spectre. "So what happened?"

Anderson sighed. "It doesn't look good, Shepard. The Beacon was destroyed, and half of New Eden is a radioactive crater." He shifted, the fingers on his still organic right hand tapping lightly against his leg. "I've sent a report to HIGHCOM on Earth. We're diverting to the Citadel to testify to the Council."

Nihlus' colour was grim. "The Council wouldn't risk galactic stability and prosperous relations for something like this. Saren must have gone rogue. And a rogue Spectre can mean a whole lot of trouble."

Anderson nodded. "The Security Council is probably still debating on how to respond, but they should have made their decision by the time we reach the Citadel." He tapped at his Omni-tool. "Ambassador Udina will brief us when we arrive. I've decided to bring the entire ground team from Eden Prime. You, and Lieutenant Alenko, as well as Staff Sergeant Williams and Corporal Bhatia."

"Williams and Bhatia, sir?" Shepard scratched her head. _Bhatia is on the ship as well?_

"I've had them temporarily transferred to the _Normandy._ We haven't had the chance to fill the hole left by Jenkins in Alenko's squad."

"Understood, sir. ROE on the Citadel?"

"Light patrol armour, Carbines and Service Pistols. No heavy ordnance. The rest is as usual for urban ops."

"Carbines seem a bit heavy for a diplomatic job, sir."

Nihlus paced around the room. He stopped by the medi-gel dispenser, looking at it curiously. "If I know Saren, he'll have a target painted on you, on all of us. My Spectre clearance will get you onto the station with weapons, but only up to a certain point."

Anderson's face had an oddly knowing look painted across it. Shepard decided not to bring it up.

"As for those visions, Shepard, we're going to send you to speak to a Naval Intelligence Esper to see if we can make any sense out of them, but that will come later. The Council will probably want to have one of their own examine those visions of yours." He looked down at his watch, an old steel and canvas timepiece. "We should be arriving at the Citadel soon. You alright to walk, Commander?"

"Aye aye, sir." She rose to her feet and saluted. "Commander Theresa Shepard, reporting for duty, sir!"

"Good. Let's head up to the CIC. A Citadel approach is something you need to see for the first time."

* * *

_There was a flash of blue light against the purple-violet light of the nebula, and where there had only been a faint trace of stellar material, a small, dart-like shape burst into existence. Fusion torches at high-throttle, the _UNSNormandy_ flew gracefully into the void. Like an eagle gliding through a forest, the _Normandy_ swooped past the long lanes of ships lining up to dock at the space station off in the distance._

_And what a sight it was. Even at thousands of kilometres, the station was large enough to be seen by the group of people standing behind the _Normandy'_s pilot. The gentle curve of the colossal petal-like arms spread forwards from the immense ring at the end of the station. The Citadel. The centre of the "civilised" galaxy._

_The ship sped past the warships of the Citadel Defence Fleet, rushing past the blunt, predatory shapes of turian cruisers and the sleek, aquatic form of the asari dreadnought, the _Destiny Ascension_, massive and powerful enough to take on multiple human-built vessels of the same tonnage._

_The _Normandy _drifted closer to the station, decelerating as it made its way forwards._

* * *

"_Transferring you to a human operator, Normandy."_

"Follow the beacons to Zakera Ward Dock D24."

There hadn't been much time to see the sights, as Anderson hurried the team through the dock, and straight to the embassy, which was a mere hundred metres away from the docking bays reserved for the human United Nations Embassy. They were through security in seconds, and were standing in Ambassador Donnell Udina's office within three minutes of stepping out of the _Normandy_'s airlock.

"A fine mess, isn't it, Captain Anderson. The Beacon was destroyed, the biggest city on Eden Prime was destroyed, two hundred thousand people are dead. Can I ask why you've brought a small army to a diplomatic hearing."

Anderson stood at attention. "Just the ground team from Eden Prime, sir. Minus our wounded man. Spectre Nihlus left to give his report to the Council."

Udina frowned. "I see. Come on, if we dawdle and longer we'll be late to see the Council." The Ambassador lead the group out of the bustling building and into a waiting D-22 Sabretooth dropship. The moment the six humans were locked into the jumpseats in the troop compartment, the rear hatch raised into its closed position, and the unarmed white dropship lifted off with a roar.

Towards the front end of the compartment, Anderson had a frustrated frown on his face. He was engaged in a quiet conversation with Udina, who looked equally discontented. Shepard could feel the disheartenment emanating off of the pair.

_Nope. Not touching that with a ten-foot pole. Nope. This can only mean trouble._

"_Ambassador, Captain, we're docking at the base of the Citadel Tower now._"

There was a metallic thunk as the shuttle touched down at the the Presidium's Diplomatic Port. The entire section was covered in a mass effect field to keep the atmosphere in, so the moment the pilots gave confirmation to dock, the Sabretooth's portside door slid open. A pair of lightly armed UN Marines, probably from the embassy, stood at the ready, Behind them, two turian Citadel Security, C-Sec, officers waited, M-15 Vindicator rifles held in their talons. Shepard noted that the weapons were set to safe.

Shepard motioned to the rest of her squad. "Alenko and I will go first, then the Captain and Ambassador Udina. Williams, Bhatia, bring up the rear. We're taking no chances. Watch all angles. We don't know if Saren is going to try anything." Silent nods were the only response she received.

As she stepped down onto the platform, the two Marines stood at attention, but did not salute. _They're treating this like a combat situation._ "This way, sirs," said one of them. The young man had the symbol of the Martian Marine Corps painted on his chestplate, while the other had the crest of the Elysium Marines.

"Quickly sir, this platform is too exposed. We need to get you all into the Council Chambers immediately." The Marine tapped his wrist.

Shepard turned to her group. "You heard the man. Let's go, people."

The Marines and C-Sec officers led the group off the platform towards a large elevator at the end of the walkway. It was obvious to see that the men were constantly scanning their surroundings as they walked. In the end, nothing happened, and the escorts lead them into the elevator. Once they were inside, the doors slid shut, and the lift began to descend. Slowly descend.

After about thirty seconds, the elevator music turned into an advertisement for an elcor production of Hamlet. That raised a few eyebrows. At the front of the group, one of the turians looked at the other, and shrugged.

_Longest elevator ride. Ever._ Shepard looked around as she followed the escort out of the lift. The Council Chamber was massive. Polished tiles paved the deck, and panelled wood lined the walls. Well groomed plants and small trees grew from small gardens along the tiered staircases, and she swore she could hear a fountain somewhere.

"It looks pretty and all, but in a fight this could be a very defensible position," said Williams, who was surveying the massive chamber as the group walked towards the central staircase. The lift had deposited them somewhere off to the side of the main entryway. Alenko nodded in agreement, but remained silent.

Shepard looked up the stairway. The purple glow of the Serpent Nebula shone in through the colossal windows at the far end, bathing the chamber in violet light.

"-o you mean I'm off the case?" Shepard could hear a flanged, metallic voice further up the stairs. A pair of turians, both in C-Sec uniforms, stood. The one wearing the tactical visor and blue face-paint looked frustrated.

"Saren is a Spectre problem now, Vakarian. All C-Sec personnel are being pulled, not just you. Head back to headquarters for reassignment."

Vakarian narrowed his eyes. "But sir, just a little more time, and I could-"

"Don't make me repeat myself, Investigator Vakarian."

Vakarian's shoulders slumped. "Yes sir." He turned and began to march himself down the staircase. As he walked down the steps, he noticed Shepard's group. He stopped next to them.

"Commander Shepard. Welcome to the Citadel. Garrus Vakarian," he introduced himself, "Investigator, C-Sec. Formerly assigned to the Arterius Investigation."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. She nodded to Anderson, who returned the gesture. The Captain continued to lead their ad-hoc delegation up the steps.

She turned back to the turian detective. "Formerly assigned?"

The turian opened and closed his talons. "Council directive. The investigation started immediately after the reports about Eden Prime started coming in. Geth attacks don't happen every day, you know. And then Spectre Kyrik showed up with his reports, and the Council froze all investigations related to the attack."

Shepard scratched her head. "So….did you find out anything?"

"Something. It might be nothing. I tried to petition Executor Pallin for access to Saren's military and Spectre records, try and find some kind of link between him and the attack on Eden Prime. All of his mission records are heavily classified."

He looked back up the staircase, the violet light glinting off his metallic skin. The ambient noise in the chamber had increased. "You'd better go, Commander. It sounds like the conference has begun." He tapped his omni-tool. A contact exchange request appeared in Shepard's mental window. "I'm going to keep digging. I'll contact you if I find anything."

_A UNN officer in contact with a Citadel Security detective. This could be promising._ She thought-clicked the _accept_ button.

"Thank you, Detective. Humanity could really use any help it can get."

Garrus nodded. "Good luck up there, Shepard." The turian turned and stalked off towards the elevator at the far end of the chamber.

Theresa gazed back up towards the top of the stairs.

"-_on behalf of the United Nations of Earth and the Colonies-"_

Her in-head flashed. A message from Anderson. "_The hearing's started, be quick"._ The chamber had become quiet as Ambassador Udina began to speak.

As Shepard reached the top of the stairs, pushing through the small crowd that had gathered. There were a few news camera-drones floating in the air above. She took her place next to Anderson behind the speaker's platform. The Captain simply nodded.

"-_t is with great regret that the United Nations will be ending all trade, scientific, and military relations with the Citadel Council effective immediately unless the rogue agent Saren Arterius is brought to justice for his crimes against humanity. This decision will be open to some negotiation. Thank you for your time."_ As the Council chamber descended into chaos, Udina bowed to the Council, before turning and stepping away from the platform.

_What?_

Councillor Tevos appeared slightly flustered. "Ambassador, this is clearly an overreaction by your government. Humanity has had amiable relationships with the Citadel for almost thirty years."

Udina had been facing towards the human group at the time, which allowed Shepard to watch his expression, and his colour, contort into almost pure rage. The man whipped around, furious. "Councillor. One of your agents is responsible for an attack on a human world that resulted in the deaths of almost _two million people_, and the destruction of one of the largest human settlements outside the Sol Drift. To say that our species is _pissed_ would be a gross understatement." Tevos shifted uncomfortably and winced.

The salarian councilor, Valern, took the stand in place of the cowed Tevos. "Your anger and frustrations are understandable, as are those of your people, Ambassador. Why don't we reconvene at a future juncture for negotiations?"

With a gravelly tone to his voice, Udina replied, "I'll bring it up with my superiors."

Shepard blinked.

* * *

**Again, sorry about how short this chapter is and how long it's been since the last update.**

**Question time:**

**Generatedname: I did read Turtledoves novels, but these are actually more Halo references. Big Halo fan.**

**BrokenLifeCycle: I'm a bit up in the air about energy shields. The closest thing to them in Muv-Luv is the Rutherford Field, which uses gravity distortions to bend shots around the vessel, rather than blocking hits. The problem with the Rutherford Field is that the equipment for generating and stabilising wouldn't fit on anything smaller than a frigate.**

**Ddragon21: When your civilisation has been around thousands of years longer than another, of course you'd feel superior.**

**Drygen: Yeah I'm thinking of rewriting and fleshing out the timeline more at some point in the future. It'll be cleaned up eventually. Also, the story will being to diverge more later.**

**edboy4926: maybe. I'm a bit up in the air regarding many things about the SR-2.**


End file.
